The Shakespeare revival and the Stratford-upon-Avon movement

i)

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

AND THE STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
MOVEMENT

Photo by D. McNeill, Stratford-upon-A-von

SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB, BENEATH THE BUST AND TABLET TO HIS

MEMORY, IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, AS

GARLANDED WITH FLOWERS ON APRIL 23.

THE SHAKESPEARE
REVIVAL

AND THE STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
MOVEMENT

BY

REGINALD R. BUCKLEY

WITH CHAPTERS ON FOLK-ART BY MARY NEAL

A FOREWORD BY F. R. BENSON

AND AN INTRODUCTION BY

ARTHUR HUTCHINSON

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & SONS

44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE

1911

[All rights reserved]

Printed by BALLANTYNK, HANSON &* Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

THE GOVERNORS

OF THE

SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

THIS BOOK IS

BY PERMISSION DEDICATED

AS A TRIBUTE TO THEIR WORK

516882

CONTENTS

PAGE

FOREWORD. BY F. R BENSON xi

THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE AT STRAT

FORD-UPON-AVON : A RECORD OF ITS WORK.

ARTHUR HUTCHINSON 3

THE NATURE OF DRAMA
BY REGINALD R. BUCKLEY

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART . . 43

II. THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE 66

III. CONCERNING WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . 83

IV. THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE . . .102
V. A TEMPLE OF DREAMS: A PERSONAL

REVERIE 119

VI. WAGNER AND His RELATION TO SHAKE-
SPEARE . . . . . . .136

VII. CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE . .153
VIII. THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART . . -177

FOLK-ART
BY MARY NEAL

I. THE STRATFORD - UPON - AVON FESTIVAL

MOVEMENT AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS . 191
vii

CONTENTS

PACK

II. THE REVIVAL OF FOLK- ART

I. IN ENGLAND 214

II. THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART AND THE

DRAMA IN THE UNITED STATES . 224

APPENDIX
How TO TAKE PART IN THE MOVEMENT , . 231

via

ILLUSTRATIONS

SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB, BENEATH THE BUST AND TABLET TO
HIS MEMORY, IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY,
AS GARLANDED WITH FLOWERS ON APRIL 23

Frontispiece
Photo by D. Me N fill, Stratford-upon-Avon

THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE AT

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON .... Facing p. 4

Photo by A. Tyler, Stratford-upon-Avon

MR, F. R. BENSON AS HENRY V. . . . 13

Photo by Chancellor, Dublin

MRS. F. R. BENSON AS CONSTANCE 32

Photo by /,. Caswall Smith

Miss ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA 49

Photo by Window 6* Grove

SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE AS HAMLET 64

Photo by W. &> D. Downey

Miss GENEVIEVE WARD AS VOLUMNIA 81

Photo by L. Caswall Smith

MR. J. FORBES-ROBERTSON AS HAMLET AND

Miss GERTRUDE ELIOT AS OPHELIA . 96

Photo by W. & D, Downey

MR. LEWIS WALLER AS ROMEO ... 113

Photo by Lang far

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Miss CONSTANCE COLLIER AS JULIET . . Facing p. 128

Photo by L. Caswall Smith

MR. OTHO STUART AS BRUTUS 145

Photo by D. McNeill, Stratford-upon-Avon

MR. ARTHUR BOURCHIER AS SHYLOCK AND

Miss VIOLET VANBRUGH AS PORTIA . 160

Photo by Ellis & Walery

MR. OSCAR ASCHE AS OTHELLO 177

Photo by C. Histed

MR. HENRY AINLEY AS ROMEO 192

Photo by Ellis 6 s Walery

THE LATE GEORGE R. WEIR AS SIR TOBY

BELCH 209

Photo by W. /. Kilpatrick, Dublin

MORRIS DANCERS AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 224

Photo by Central News Agency

FOREWORD

I AM very proud to be asked to write a Fore-
word to a work published by a firm so long
associated with the name of John Ruskin ;
proud that our work at Stratford should be
regarded, by the writers of it, as part of
that campaign against the unloveliness of
modern life in which Ruskin was the pro-
tagonist. The outlines of the dream that
Mr. Charles Flower and the founders of the
Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Memorial,
their friends and successors, have been dream-
ing and developing for more than thirty years
may be summed up in the following general
terms.

Even if the exact shape of the towers be
lost in the clouds, the rainbow and the sunshine,
seemingly variable because ever growing ; if
for a moment one is bewildered by the vast-
ness of its possibilities for the future, one is
recalled to action in the present by the practical
example of the founder and by the joyous stir
and bustle attending the Festival. One of the

xi

FOREWORD

pleasures of the dream is that its foundation is
on solid earth, formulated in bricks and mortar
linked to Warwickshire soil by creeping plants
and twining flowers. For the man and his co-
workers, who will always have the chief honour
of designing the fabric, like the rest of our race,
could do as well as dream. The picture has
many settings. Here is one of them.

It is the first of May. The dreamer is
lying on a smooth lawn by the river-side ;
part of the garden attached to the theatre
buildings. To the right, through a frame of
rush and willow, yew and cedar and elm, the
spire of the church looks down on the mill
where Celt, Roman, Saxon and Dane, Nor-
man and Englishman for centuries have
ground their harvest. In front, beyond the
river, stretches the playing-field of the town ;
secured to the towns-folk for ever by wise
burgesses. The playing-fields are deserted
to-day, save for a few youths enjoying the last
kick of the season at a football, or their first
renewal of the controversy between cricket bat
and ball. The leisure energy of the com-
munity is occupied elsewhere.

The clock in the old church tower strikes
twelve, and the jackdaws and the starlings
notify to the rooks that another sun has

xii

FOREWORD

reached its zenith ; but the rooks, busy giving
their offspring a final lesson in aviation,
merely caw back composedly, " It is so, all
is well." On the river one or two boats and
the swans with their cygnets are to be seen
making for the croft on the other side of the
theatre, where the ban or militia were wont in
ancient days to assemble for practice in arms.
The Bancroft, 1 too, is the perpetual possession
of the people, thanks to the same wise policy.

But hark ! I hear the minstrels play, and
after them I know the rout is coming.
" Such a May morning never was before,"
at least within our time. On to the green
of the Bancroft dance the singing children
of Stratford and the neighbouring villages.
Young and old to the number of some
thousands follow after to see the final cere-
mony, to tune their hearts to the rhythm of
the final dance, and carry back to their homes
the human harmony of the final song.

The Mayor in his chain of office, supported
by the notables of the district, makes a cheery
little speech. He hands a bouquet to the

1 The derivation of the word " Bankcroft " is more usually
given as that of the croft or meadow on the bank. Perhaps
seeing the stress Skakespeare lays on national self-defence
the other derivation given in the text may be allowed,

xiii

FOREWORD

Queen of the May, a fair little maiden seated
on a throne of flowers in the midst of her court.
The rough spear, entwined with ivy pointing
upwards, connects the eternal homage paid by
age to youth with the primitive wo/ship from
our ancestors to the earth and the sun. Then
the Folk-songs of our forefathers ring out
blithely on the spring air, and the twinkling
feet of the little dancers on the grass catch
something of the rhythm of Shakespeare's
verse and the music of the spheres. Among
the crowd are many people from over-seas ;
blood brothers of the race, fellow subjects
from distant parts of our Empire, friends from
foreign countries all the world over Scandi-
navia, the Netherlands, France, Germany,
Russia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and the
Balkans. The Spaniard, the Bohemian, the
African, the Asiatic recognise in many of the
dances some primitive ceremony still in vogue
among their own folk to this day. In the
Broom dance of an elderly but active villager
the American from Honolulu notes as an old
friend the spear dance of the Pacific Islanders.
The Indian Prince, guest of honour on this
occasion, expresses his pleasure at being
present with words full of meaning. " I will
take back to my country the story of your

xiv

FOREWORD

song and your dance and your Shakespeare
Festival, that my people may have more joy
in their lives, and that your folk and my folk
may better understand each other's religion."
As said an Eastern in a byegone age, "Your
people shall be my people, and your gods my
gods." And then the May-day part of the
Festival ends and the crowd disperse to their
various tasks, and the Queen of the May steals
forth in the afternoon to lay her crown and the
bouquet, given by the Mayor, on her father's
recently made grave. For her, as for the
others, sorrow sojourneth but for a season in
the promise of the May.

" The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb ;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb.
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find ;
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities."

The dreamer watches the streams of people
scatter, some to the library or to the picture
gallery, some to study the heraldic meaning
of the decorations in the streets the blazon
of achievement won by Warwickshire worthies
or heroes of Shakespeare's verse ; some to the

FOREWORD

birthplace or the school, the cottage of Anne
Hathaway, the home of Shakespeare's mother,
Mary Arden, or the monument in the church.
The bands of teachers troop off to their daily
lessons in Folk-song and Folk-dances, or to
hear a lecture on Folk- Lore, or Shakespeare's
Girls and their Flowers. Some repair to
the exhibition of arms and armour, of house-
hold gear and furniture the furniture and
metal-work made in the days when handicraft
and skilled workmanship were the cherished
possessions of every artisan. Or the onlooker
may have followed the man with the spade,
unconsciously helping to solve the problem of
how to make a profit of 60 a year out of
a single acre. His thoughts, however, going
back to the land and the garden city, would be
interrupted by another phase in this cradle of
English yeoman life. He catches sight of a
country waggon drawn by a gaily -decked
horse half-hidden with tapestry, embroideries,
and woven webs, whence look out the wistful
faces of some workers from the neighbouring
school of needlework, not strong enough to
join in the dances except with their deft
hands and hearts. Some, had he questioned
them, would have told him that their poet
had shown them in the Playhouse how "we

xvi

FOREWORD

English became what we are and how we
can keep so." He would have reverently re-
cognised that power of growth in the great
Master's work that makes him eternally
modern, so that the people of a thousand
years hence will still have their lesson to
learn to apply properly the wisdom of the
Anglo-Celtic seer to the practical details of
their everyday life. But now the crowd are
beginning to re-assemble that they may attend
the evening performance, and the dreamer
will have to hurry off to get his place at the
theatre. It may be that he will see some
pilgrim from the country-side, visiting the
theatre for the first time in her life, drop on
her knees and pray, vaguely realising that this
Festival of Drama may have something to do
with the relation of man to God. He may
hear in the theatre such remarks as " He is a
clever one that wrote yon." Or the simple
conclusion, breathlessly uttered at the end of
Macbeth, " Aye, but that chap was a waster."
Then he will watch the audience disperse to
rest, and he will know the pilgrims have gained
something of strength and knowledge, "Aye,
man, it helps one to do a better week's work."
On this starlit night, when the nightingale
is singing, the triumph of the spring in every

xvii b

FOREWORD

hedgerow round, the ceremony grows on his
fancy and the dreamer returns to the river-
side to think it out. And now in place of the
swallows the bats fly their cloistered flights

" The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal."

The waters of the Avon reflect the music of
the myriad of young-eyed cherubim, and as in
the surface of a shield the dreamer seeks to
catch a vision of the future. His fancy builds
upon the events of the day, upon the shadow of
the theatre, as he sees it reflected in the starry
depths. There rises before him with added
courts and upper storeys a temple dedicated to
the genius of the Anglo-Celtic race. Around
are shrines to the Greek and the Indian Sage,
to Aeschylus, to Phidias, to Plato, to Michael
Angelo and Beethoven, where the service of
song is perpetually celebrated by priests and
pilgrims. Side by side with the Morality,
the Mystery, and the Miracle play are per-
formed Sakuntala and the Drama of the East.
The Orphic hymn in its early and latest de-
velopment mixes with the bardic drama of the
Ivernian minnesingers. Goethe, Cervantes,
Moliere, and the moderns from every country
contribute their offering at the dramatic altar,

xviii

FOREWORD

send their message of poetry the making
of life and action for the children of men.
Under its roof, books, pictures, statues help
to express and formulate the work of this
college of humanity. Stratford, Warwickshire,
the British Empire, and America join in an
informal conference of the Anglo-Celtic con-
federation, With their differences adjusted
in a world of art, music and literature their
common race possession, they will realise, as
they join hands with the subtle strength of
India, the triumph of the Aryan Empire, which
seems on this night of May to be drawing
nearer with the dawn, for the pilgrims who
have realised Shakespeare's message of strong
and strenuous self-control. For them the
blending of East and West and the recon-
ciliation of Black and White can be left to
the coming of the years.

" From the four corners of the earth they come
To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint,"

bringing in their train the fervour of the
Romance nations, the discipline of the Teuton,
the primitive vigour of the Slav, the enterprise
of the Scandinavian, the mystic reverence of
the Oriental.

The gazer in the stream can, in fancy, hear
xix

FOREWORD

the prayer of agony, the praise of joy, the
lyric of love, the paean of the battle, the call
of the blood, the anthem of a new awakened
and a larger faith, mingled with the thou-
sand voices of our mother Earth, as the
Master Singer unrolls his written scroll.
Above these variant notes, dominant, insis-
tent, in the great peace of the night sounds the
call of the Higher Humanity, throbs the note
of nature that makes the whole world kin.

" If it be not now, yet it will come" ; let be
the workers round the temple can wait.

F. R. BENSON.

xx

THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

THEATRE AT STRATFORD-

UPON-AVON

A RECORD OF ITS WORK
BY ARTHUR HUTCHINSON

THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

THEATRE AT STRATFORD-

UPON-AVON

A FALLACY very commonly maintained by
those who have set themselves to doubt the
identity of the play-actor of Stratford-upon-
Avon with the author of the great literary
heritage known as the work of William
Shakespeare, has consisted in the frequent
statement that Shakespeare himself attained
but little glory while he lived, and gained still
less tribute from those who came after him
within the century or more that immediately
followed his death.

It is a point of curiosity that any such
view should ever have gained currency, either
in print or in conversational argument, for,
as a matter of fact, the praise of Shakespeare
went onward in steady development and accu-
mulation, from the tributes of his contempo-
raries and immediate successors in literature
"Rare Ben Jonson," Francis Meres ("the

SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine
filed phrase, if they would speak English"),
Richard Barnfield, John Weever, Michael
Drayton, and others to the stately eulogy of
Milton's famous sonnet.

From Milton's time onward, through the
modish literature of the Restoration period,
and the more pedantic feeling of eighteenth-
century criticism, approval of Shakespeare
progressed, until the more humane spirit of
nineteenth-century letters completed the shrine
of appreciation that had gradually been built
around the name and work of Stratford's son,
who, in Ben Jonson's phrase, " was not for
an age, but for all time." The compiler of
" Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse" gave an
interesting survey of the continuity with which
homage was paid to Shakespeare throughout
the first century after his death, and Mr.
C. E. Hughes, in his delightful volume, " The
Praise of Shakespeare," presents a still more
comprehensive record, and one brought down
to the tributes of our own day.

It is, however, somewhat curious, but still
the fact, that while the literary love for Shake-
speare's work, and the resulting increase in the
study of it, marched steadily onward, belief
in the poet's plays as entertainments for

4

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

the theatre-going public gradually decreased,
from the days of their "improvement" and
adaptation for the artificial tastes of the period
by Dryden, Nahum Tate, and other play-
wrights, until, by the middle of the Victorian
era, only some half dozen, or but few more
than that, of the greater tragedies and comedies
could be said any longer to hold the stage.
Samuel Phelps, in his memorable management
of Sadler's Wells Theatre, did his utmost to
remove this reproach ; but, with the gradual
passing of the actors trained in the traditions
of the old " stock" companies, all but the more
admittedly popular of Shakespeare's plays were
relegated from the stage to the study again.
There they awaited the full renaissance of the
Shakespearean drama on the stage under the
enlightened rule of the more literary of our
modern actor-managers.

Meanwhile Shakespeare's native town of
Stratford-upon-Avon was in even poorer plight
than the metropolis or the larger provincial
cities, since it obviously could not offer the
strongest form of inducement to the actor-
managers of succeeding generations to make
any lengthy sojourn within its gates for the
sole purpose of producing the Shakespearean
drama. For many years it could not even

5

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

extend the hospitality of a permanent theatre
for stage visitors of repute at any ordinary
period of the year, but erected a temporary
pavilion for the occasional commemoration of
that son who in its noble parish church lay "as
lord, not tenant to the grave."

The first recorded celebration of Shake-
speare's memory in his native place, as dis-
tinct from the ordinary performance of his
more popular plays by strolling players, among
whom are known to have been both Peg
Woffington and Roger Kemble, the father of
the famous Mrs. Siddons was a performance
of "Othello" given in 1748 by a touring
manager of some repute named John Ward,
the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, for
the raising of funds to repair Shakespeare's
monument in the church.

The performance realised ^17, and the
occasion has been handed down to the present
time by a curiously direct memento in the form
of a pair of buckskin gloves which are believed
to have belonged originally to Shakespeare.
They were presented, as such, in recognition
of the performance, to the actor John Ward,
by Shakespeare Hart, a descendant of the
poet's sister. Ward subsequently gave them
to David Garrick, from whom they passed to

6

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

Mrs. Siddons, and through her to Fanny
Kemble, who presented them to Dr. Horace
Howard Furness, the eminent American autho-
rity on Shakespeare's work.

The first Shakespearean Commemoration of
any organised importance was a " Jubilee"
promoted by David Garrick in 1769. This
was in its way a very brilliant affair, but con-
cerned itself less with the actual plays of Shake-
speare than has since become the custom,
banquets, balls, and even horse-racing forming
the larger part of its programme.

The opening of a regular theatre in 1827
led to the visiting of Stratford by many well-
graced players. Hither came the Keans, father
and son, Macready, Dillon, Mrs. Nisbett, and
others who made the theatrical history of their
day. The more popular of Shakespeare's
plays were given from time to time by these
and less distinguished actors, but after a time
the theatre fell on evil days. At last, in 1872,
it was bought by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,
and pulled down, amid general approval, in
order that the ground which it now cumbered
to no sufficient purpose might be restored to
its former state, as part of the garden belong-
ing to New Place, the home of Shakespeare
after his withdrawal from London life.

7

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

In the course of these ordinary professional
performances there were held two Festivals
one in 1827 and the other in 1830 which
were intended to inaugurate a series to be held
once every three years, but the scheme fell
through after the second celebration. There-
after all commemoration ceremonies fell into
abeyance until 1864, when the tercentenary of
the poet's birth was marked by a series of
performances of his plays, in which Buck-
stone, Compton, Creswick, and Sothern took
part.

The great success of this Festival, which was
held in a temporary building erected for the
purpose, inspired local enthusiasts with a wish
for a more permanent headquarters for future
celebrations. At length, in 1875, a few Strat-
ford-upon-Avon men, led by the late Charles
Edward Flower, formed themselves into an
Association for the purpose of building, as a
memorial to Shakespeare in his native town,
a theatre to form a permanent centre for the
frequent revival of his works, without regard
to the limitations all too long imposed upon
the selection of plays by the preferences of
"star" actors or the determination of the
older playgoing public that only a few of
the most famous tragedies and comedies of

8

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

the poet could be considered at all attractive
in the theatre.

The scheme also included a library for the
collection and preservation of the literature
connected with the poet's work, and a picture
gallery for the display of art chiefly inspired by
his themes, whether on canvas or in stone or
other medium. In 1877 this project was ful-
filled by the opening of the handsome Memorial
Theatre, which, with its fine library and picture
gallery and its spacious gardens on the bank
of the Avon, has in the years that have passed
become a very real and valuable centre of
Shakespearean study.

It is thirty-four years since the Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre was built at Stratford-upon-
Avon, and to-day, in 1911, it remains the only
endowed theatre in England. It is the only
theatre of which the charter enables its Gover-
nors to work not for dividends but solely for
the particular interests of dramatic art which
they have in view. " Organise the theatre,"
said Matthew Arnold, and the Governors of
the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre have done
their best to endow and organise " the constant
reiteration of Shakespeare's words " in all their
extraordinary truth of inspiration and nobility
of ideal, individual and national.

9

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Between the years 1875 an< ^ 1908 Mr. Charles
Flower and his wife, who long survived him,
contributed some ,50,000 to the building and
endowment of the Memorial, and at her death
Mrs. Flower bequeathed to the Association the
riverside property of Avonbank which adjoins
the original grounds of the Memorial buildings,
and therefore considerably extends their domain
for the benefit of future generations.

To illustrate the principles upon which the
theatre is governed, it may be of interest to
quote here a clause of the Articles of Associa-
tion :

" The income and property of the Associa-
tion, whencesoever derived, shall be applied
solely towards the promotion of the objects of
the Association as set forth in this Memorandum
of Association : and no portion thereof shall be
paid or transferred, directly or indirectly, by
way of dividend or bonus or otherwise how-
soever by way of profit, to the persons who at
any time are, or have been, Members of the
Association, or to any of them or to any person
claiming through any of them. Provided that
nothing herein shall prevent the payment in
good faith of remuneration to any officers or
servants of the Association or to any Members

10

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

of the Association or other person in return for
any services actually rendered to the Associa-
tion."

In the Memorial Theatre, which thus came
into existence, Shakespeare's reputed birthday
and his probable death-day too, April 23rd,
and a varying number of preceding or ensuing
days, have for the past thirty years seen the
performance of a number of the poet's plays.
And each year has added to this list at least
one play not previously performed there, until
but three remain unproduced, " Titus Andro-
nicus," " Troilus and Cressida," and "All's
Well that Ends Well."

To have added such a goodly number of
previously neglected works to the ranks of
the comparatively few which have been at all
frequently glorified by sumptuous " long-run"
revivals would have amounted to an achieve-
ment more than justifying the Memorial Theatre
of its critics, even if the plays had been mounted
but now and again. But with the growth of
the Festival's audiences, and the consequent
extension of the annual series of performances,
it has now for some years been possible to
repeat quite a large number of these revivals
every year. Thus Shakespeare's town can

ii

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

to-day with honourable pride claim to be the
one place in the world where a visitor can
witness as many as sixteen of the poet's plays
within a brief three weeks' season.

Beginning its work at a time when even the
traditions of Shakespearean acting had fallen
out of memory with the passing of the older
generations of players, and only a few of the
more familiar of the poet's tragedies and
comedies were at all frequently performed
upon the English stage, the Council of the
Memorial Theatre set itself to restore to the
modern theatre the long array of Shakespeare's
tragedies, comedies, and historical plays, which
had all too long been omitted from any
theatrical repertoire in the poet's own country,
and could be seen performed only in the sub-
sidised theatres of Germany. The opening
production, in 1877, was " Much Ado about
Nothing," in which Lady Martin, the famous
Helen Faucit of earlier days, emerged from
her retirement and played Beatrice to the
Benedick of Barry Sullivan. " Hamlet," "As
You Like It," and other plays were also in-
cluded in the programme of this first of the
modern Festivals.

In the following year the Memorial Coun-
cil again availed itself of Barry Sullivan's

12

Photo by Chancellor, Dublin

MR. F. R. BENSON AS HENRY V.

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

experience for the conduct of the revivals, and
then for two years Mr. Edward Compton, whose
distinguished father had contributed much to
the success of the 1864 Celebration, was en-
trusted with the artistic control of a programme
which included " Twelfth Night," " Romeo and
Juliet," and "The Comedy of Errors" as chief
novelties. In 1883 Mr. Elliot Galer, an Eng-
lishman chiefly associated as actor with the
American stage, added "Macbeth," " Henry
IV., Part I.," and " King Lear" to the list of
the Memorial productions, and in the following
two years Miss Alleyn contributed " Cymbe-
line," " Measure for Measure," and " Love's
Labour Lost."

The list of productions already wears an im-
portant air, but it must be admitted that they
had so far been leavened with sundry modern
plays that were in no sense worthy of the
occasion. The real fact probably was that
the affair still remained for the most part a
local one, and local audiences were not large
enough to require several performances of one
play. The Festival had still to await the
gradual growth of a gathering of visitors such
as now supports it. In 1886 the control of
the theatrical arrangements was for the first
time entrusted by the Memorial Council to

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Mr. F. R. Benson, who had not long be-
fore organised his now famous Shakespearean
Repertoire Company. Since then Mr. and
Mrs. Benson and their company have been
responsible for the productions of the Memo-
rial Theatre, with the exception of those of
1889-90, when the performances were directed
by the late Osmond Tearle, and of 1895, when
Mr. Ben Greet was invited to produce the
series of plays for the year, and with his re-
vival of "The Winter's Tale," with Mr. H. B.
Irving, Miss Beatrice Lamb, Miss Dorothea
Baird, and Miss Louie Freear in the cast,
made a notable addition to the Memorial
Theatre's record.

With the more continuous policy made pos-
sible by a single directorate the reputation of
the Memorial productions has grown apace.

When the Memorial buildings were first
projected, many a voice was raised to protest
that the one thing lacking would prove to be
the audience. The prophecy has proved idle.
By 1897, when the theatre was just twenty
years old, the Festival's brief span of a week
was extended to a fortnight, and in five years
came a further expansion to three weeks ;
and with each added week has come the
further series of audiences that the enterprise

J4

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

required. And the year 1910 brought the
most important development of all in the
establishing of a summer season of a further
three weeks' period in addition to the older
Spring Festival. It has thus become feasible
to arrange programmes of greater variety than
was possible in old days, especially as Strat-
ford's expansion has found an increasingly
generous spirit of co-operation on the part of
many of the most distinguished players of our
time. Thus a Festival programme nowadays
provides not only a galaxy of histrionic talent,
but that further point of interest which the
epicure in such matters finds in studying the
work of different players, of different person-
alities and temperaments, as manifested in the
same play, within a few days of attendance at
the Memorial Theatre. The Festival playgoer
is thus afforded an opportunity for studies in
comparative criticism which the conditions of
ordinary theatrical management can seldom
offer.

It has been an interesting scheme that has
been carried out during the last few years at
this, our only endowed theatre, and one that
has done much to consolidate the artistic
success of the Memorial project.

Each year some play long banished from

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

the stage has been revived with special
elaboration, and at a time when most of these
works, such as " A Midsummer Night's Dream/'
" The Tempest," " The Merry Wives of Wind-
sor," -Twelfth Night," "Timon of Athens,"
and the historical plays, Roman and English,
had been entirely neglected on the London or
provincial stage for practically a whole genera-
tion, they were revived year by year at the
Memorial Theatre, and not revived for the
moment merely, but carried away to the
country as part of the regular repertoire of
Mr. Benson's itinerary and brought back to
Stratford-upon-Avon to be repeated in support
of the chief novelty of the next year's series.
" The Merry Wives of Windsor," for instance,
first revived at the Festival of 1886, when it had
not been seen on the stage at all for many a
long day, has been frequently given in ensuing
years in immediate company with the historical
plays in which Falstaff figures. Thus the
Festival playgoer has achieved Queen Eliza-
beth's wish to see the truculent knight pass
from the plays which show him in the real
history of his day, but only as a subordinate
character, into the role of protagonist in the
world of merriment with which the poet en-
dowed the wives of Windsor.

16

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

"Julius Caesar/' again, first revived in 1891,
has since been repeated, in all the fresh effec-
tiveness which the historical plays acquire by
such proximity to each other, in Festival
programmes in which it has stood midway
between the other Roman plays, " Coriolanus "
and " Antony and Cleopatra." Few points
of interest in such matters could be more
illuminating than the contrast brought out by
this juxtaposition between the austerity of the
Rome of " Coriolanus,'* the fuller yet still self-
critical spirit of the Rome of " Julius Caesar,"
and the sensuous abandonment of that gor-
geous East which Cleopatra held in fee. As
far as one can gather, the experiment of giving
these three plays from Roman history in close
conjunction had never before been attempted
on any stage, any more than had the intensely
interesting scheme subsequently carried out at
the Memorial Theatre, by the performance, in
chronological sequence, of Shakespeare's long
series of plays from English history.

The interest of these chronicle-plays is enor-
mously enhanced by their consecutive perfor-
mance in the historical order of their events.
Such a moment as Henry the Fifth's prayer be-
fore the Battle of Agincourt, wherein the kneel-
ing monarch protests his attempted atonement

17 B

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

for the murder of Richard the Second, which
secured his father's crown, becomes doubly poig-
nant when the auditors have but two nights
previously seen the hapless Richard grace the
triumph of proud Bolingbroke, and but one
night since have witnessed the alarums and ex-
cursions which left that same victorious Boling-
broke small joy in his advancing years.

The trumpet-call of English patriotism
sounded at the close of " King John " forms
the prelude to Shakespeare's long epic in
dramatic form, which closes with the vision
of national prosperity foreshadowed in the bap-
tismal blessing of the infant Queen Elizabeth,
in the last Act of " Henry VIII." Then
comes the Lancastrian trilogy which, as Pro-
fessor Dowden effectively says, "commences
with 'The Tragedy of King Richard 1 1/ and
closes with ' The Life of King Henry V.'
In four successive plays is presented the story
of the rise and triumph of the House of Lan-
caster. Four other plays the three parts of
4 King Henry VI.' and * The Tragedy of
King Richard III/ present the story of the
decline of the House of Lancaster and the
rise and fall of the House of York. These
plays of the Wars of the Roses and the life
and death of the usurper Richard were the

18

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

work of Shakespeare's 'prentice hand, when
he worked in conjunction with some of his
early contemporaries, and was subject to the
dominant influence of the greatest among them
Christopher Marlowe. The Lancastrian
group contains some early work, for ' King
Richard II.' cannot be remote in date from
' King Richard III/; but the former of these
plays, whether chronologically the second in
order or not, is far more independent and
native to Shakespeare's genius as a dramatic
work than the Marlowesque tragedy of ' King
Richard III.' The Lancastrian group has also
in it work which represents Shakespeare's full
maturity as a craftsman in dramatic history.
It excels the Yorkist series of plays beyond all
comparison in its fine studies of character, in
its presentation of heroic action, and in its free
and joyous humour.

"The action may be said to move on with-
out interruption from the opening of * King
Richard II.' to the close of ' King Henry V.,'
from Bolingbroke's challenge of Norfolk to
the wooing of the French princess by the
victor of Agincourt.

" Then follows the series of dramas present-
ing the rise and fall of the House of York, and
through the eight plays which make up the

19

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

whole connected series of Lancaster and York,
runs a continuous moral purpose a setting
forth, as it were, of the justice of God in the
history of England, the sins of the father being
visited upon the children or upon the children's
children, until at last on Bosworth Field the
evil has reached its term, and Richmond and
Elizabeth

* The true succeeders of each royal house '

enter * by God's fair ordinance/ on their
heritage of loyalty and peace." l

Vivid and impressive as are each of these
plays singly, taken as a consecutive series they
present us with a vision of history extraordi-
narily illuminative of the national character.

" Shakespeare's kings are not, nor are meant,"
as Walter Pater says, " to be, great men : rather,
little or quite ordinary humanity, thrust upon
greatness, with those pathetic results, the natural
self-pity of the weak heightened in them into
irresistible appeal to others as the net result
of their royal prerogative. One after another,
they seem to lie composed in Shakespeare's
embalming pages, with just that touch of

1 Shakespeare's " Henry IV., Parts I. and II.," illustrated by
Edward Griitzner. Introduction by Edward Dowden, LL.D.
Cassell & Co.

20

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

Nature about them, making the whole world
akin, which has infused into their tombs at
Westminster a rare poetic grace." 1

While these kings were living their little
day the national character was evolving, slowly
and imperceptibly. Even Shakespeare him-
self when he wrote these plays, or rewrote
them from older models, could not see their
full historical value, because he lived too soon
to see the long results of the strange happen-
ings which he merely accepted from their first
chroniclers. But he accepted with an extraordi-
narily fine sense of selection, and throughout
he seems to see the general trend of the English
character, while monarch succeeded monarch
and then went down to " Death's public tiring-
house/' In these historical plays, ranging from
"King John" to " Henry VIII.," he shows
himself not only as a great dramatist, but as
an English patriot, illustrating the slow but
sturdy growth of his own countrymen.

The splendidly vivid interest with which
Shakespeare has endowed this long series of
pictures of the gradual but continuous evolu-
tion of the English national character under
many rulers, was emphasised to the full for
the first time, for the bulk of the audiences, by

1 " Appreciations," by Walter Pater. Macmillan & Co.
21

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

the staging of these plays, and the effect was
strangely moving. The series of performances
will endure as a most interesting memory to
all who witnessed them, and as a monument
of what has been accomplished at Stratford-
upon-Avon, in a cause which had previously
been attempted only in Germany.

If the Memorial Theatre had done nothing
else in its history but provide this fascinating
experience, it would be more than justified of
all its critics. An instrument of national educa-
tion of the finest value would be supplied by
the more frequent performance of these plays,
especially if given, as at Stratford, in their
chronological sequence.

But even the most ardent of Stratford's pil-
grims lives not by chronicle-plays alone, and
amid all the recondite labour of restoring to
the stage such all too long neglected work, the
more generally popular of Shakespeare's plays
have still yearly held their own. The Prince
of Denmark has tardily avenged his father's
murder, not only within the wonted limits of
the modern stage, but in the larger sphere of
character and motive supplied by the perform-
ance of the entire text of the play, with whole
speeches and scenes long omitted from accepted
" acting versions." Verona's star-crossed lovers

22

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

have plighted their tragic troth, Othello has
loved the gentle Desdemona " not wisely but
too well," Macbeth has murdered sleep, and
fond King Lear has made division of his
kingdom.

Shylock has been baffled of his bond by the
Portia come to judgment, Sir Toby Belch and
his fellow-roysterers have fooled Malvolio in
the Illyrian garden, Beatrice and Benedick
have made a match of their two mad wits,
Petruchio and his Katharine have stormed
their way to happy wedlock. Rosalind and her
fellows have met to " fleet the time carelessly,
as they did in the golden world," here upon the
confines of the very Forest of Arden of which
Shakespeare wrote, while the foresters have
borne on to the stage a deer from the same
Charlecote Park wherein tradition says the poet
went a-deer-stealing " Shakespeare, poacher,
or whatever else," as Carlyle has it, "our
supreme modern European man."

Other local associations are not far to seek
in the plays which mention actual places in the
very course of their events, but even when the
poet lets his fancy roam and takes the world
for his stage, the colour of the Warwickshire
countryside is never missing long. Illyria,
Bohemia, Messina, Tuscany all in turn, in

23

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

some of their poet's most lovable moments,
become transmuted into simple Warwickshire,
so that his own stage directions for one of
his plays might be reversed and his native
countryside be accounted for, once and for
all, as to be found " dispersedly in various
countries."

His "Wood near Athens" slopes over to-
wards the bank of the soft-flowing Avon, and
Nick Bottom and his fellow " rude mechanicals "
are true-born Warwickshire yokels, although
they " work for bread upon Athenian stalls."
Titania's "nine men's morris" recalls the fore-
bears of the very dancers who revive their old-
world measure at present-day Festivals, and
Oberon and Titania have planted their Grecian
forest with the same wild-flowers which to-day
are strewn in the church where

" Kings for such a tomb should wish to die."

And who more Midland in his rusticity than
the "rural fellow" who bears unto the grim
Egyptian monument " the pretty worm of
Nilus " to bring liberty to Cleopatra ?

Hamlet abandons his journey towards Eng-
land only to find a typical Warwickshire peasant
digging the grave for Ophelia, and the stream
in which

24

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

" Her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook,"

flows even nearer Stratford than the water in
which a maid of Clopton met her death, and
suggested to the poet, says tradition, the manner
of Ophelia's pitiful end. Both King Lear and
Ophelia in their madness toy with the same
old-fashioned Warwickshire flowers as Perdita
in her simple joy.

Even if this process of identification be " to
consider too curiously," there is still no escaping
from the charm of the conditions of playgoing
amid the green meadows and old-world build-
ings associated with the life of Stratford's
dramatist. In a delightful article on the sub-
ject which first appeared in The Speaker,
and has since been reprinted in his volume
of essays entitled " Ideas of Good and Evil,"
Mr. W. B. Yeats says :

" I have been hearing Shakespeare, as the
traveller in ' News from Nowhere ' might have
heard him, had he not been hurried back into
our noisy time. One passes through quiet
streets, where gabled and red-tiled houses re-
member the Middle Age, to a theatre that
has been made not to make money, but for
the pleasure of making it, like the market
houses that set the traveller chuckling ; nor

25

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

does one find it among hurrying cabs and
ringing pavements, but in a green garden by
a river side. Inside I have to be content for
a while with a chair, for I am unexpected,
and there is not an empty seat but this ; and
yet there is no one who has come merely
because one must go somewhere after dinner.
All day, too, one does not hear or see an in-
congruous or noisy thing, but spends the hours
reading the plays, and the wise and foolish things
men have said of them, in the library of the
theatre, with its oak-panelled walls and leaded
windows of tinted glass ; or one rows by
reedy banks and by old farmhouses, and by
old churches among great trees. It is certainly
one's fault if one opens a newspaper, for Mr.
Benson gives one a new play every night,
and one need talk of nothing but the play in
the inn-parlour, under the oak beams blackened
by time and showing the mark of the adze that
shaped them. I have seen this week ' King
x john,' ' Richard II.,' the second part of
1 Henry IV.,' * Henry V.,' and the second
part of * Henry VI.,' and ' Richard III.'
played in their right order, with all the links
that bind play to play unbroken ; and partly
because of a spirit in the place, and partly
because of the way play supports play, the

26

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

theatre has moved me as it has never done
before. That strange procession of kings and
queens, of warring nobles, of insurgent crowds,
of courtiers, and of people of the gutter has
been to me almost too visible, too audible,
too full of an unearthly energy. I have felt
as I have sometimes felt on grey days on
the Galway shore, when a faint mist has
hung over the grey sea and the grey stones,
as if the world might suddenly vanish and
leave nothing behind, not even a little dust
under one's feet. The people my mind's
eye has seen have too much of the extrava-
gance of dreams, like all the inventions of
art before our crowded life had brought
moderation and compromise, to seem more
than a dream, and yet all else has grown dim
before them.

"The easiness of travel, which is always
growing, began by emptying the country, but
it may end by filling it ; for adventures like
this of Stratford-on-Avon show that people are
ready to journey from all parts of England
and Scotland and Ireland, and even from
America, to live with their favourite art as
shut away from the world as though they were

27

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

'in retreat,' as Catholics say. Nobody but
an impressionist painter, who hides it in light
and mist, even pretends to love a street for
its own sake ; and could we meet our friends
and hear music and poetry in the country,
none of us that are not captive would ever
leave the thrushes." *

Writing on the same subject, another visitor
to Stratford's Festival, Mr. C. E. Montague,
says in his brilliant volume of " Dramatic
Values," reprinted from his contributions to
The Manchester Guardian :

" A thing not easily to be spoilt for you in
Stratford is the way you go to the theatre
there, at any rate on a fine evening in late
April, in a year when the spring has not been
soured by an ill-placed frost. . . . You go into
it from a garden by a river, alive just now with
little jocund noises ; there is that sound which
to hear is like drinking cool water in summer
the dip of oars and the little tinkle of laughter
from people coming home in boats at twilight ;
beyond the stream some lambs are leaping
about in a meadow of juicy grass, or posting
back to their mothers in silent thirst. Wherever
you look, behold ! it is very good. Behind

1 " Ideas of Good and Evil," by W. B. Yeats. T. Fisher
Unwin and A. H. Bullen.

28

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

you the little ordered country town is in the
oddly gay mixed light of lamps early lit and
of the lengthening daylight ; in front, beyond
the lambs, the fields rise and fall softly till
they go out of sight, the quintessence of the
contained and friendly English Midland land-
scape. When these things have possessed
your souls with content, you go through a
door and see, it may be, * As You Like It/
acted by artists on whom they are working
too at any rate, you think so. The audience,
on the whole, is picked and fit, for there is
no mere fashion of coming here, to bring many
quite vacuous spectators ; no one comes who
does not care for plays or acting ; people laugh
at the right place in comedy ; the space be-
tween them and the actors is not the non-
conductor of emotion that it often seems to
be elsewhere ; it quivers with communicative
quickness ; you do not have a sense that artist's
intention and public's perception are fumbling
for each other in a dark room ; you feel the
stir of a common intellectual excitement chang-
ing all the hard disparate atoms in the audi-
torium into one quickened brain whose joint
apprehension is not, as in most theatres, the
apprehension of the dullest, but that of the
eager and clear, the ones with speculation in

29

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

their eyes. What dead silence receives, in
most theatres, Le Beau's discreet civility

1 Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you ! '

"It is not, or was not, so at Stratford ; you
feel a whole audience to be delightedly tasting-
flavours and valuing qualities in what they
hear.

" After an act you step out into the more than
pastoral quietude of a country town settling to
rest after the day. The growth of stillness,
since you went in, is measured for you by the
new clearness of the little distant sounds,
voices at far off cottage doors, or the shouts
of a few children late at their play in the
meadows. When the play ends, outside there
is white river mist and dead silence. You all
go to bed like one household. Half an hour
after the Oresteia was done there was not a
sound in the High Street ; at midnight the
footsteps of two belated actors and their voices
at the corner as they said good-night rang like
a sound in midnight Oxford."

The record of the Memorial Theatre has
hitherto been primarily a Shakespearean one,
but other interesting revivals and productions

1 " Dramatic Values," by C. E. Montague. Methuen & Co.
30

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

have occasionally figured in the programme.
Possibly those who are pilgrims to Stratford
for the sole purpose of this series of perform-
ances would prefer to remain undisturbed in
their Shakespearean mood. But then there
is the very considerable local element of the
audiences to be considered, the element drawn
not only from the town of Stratford itself, but
from a large surrounding district, and the late
Mr. Charles Flower and the other founders of
the Memorial Theatre had it ever before them
as an ideal to endow a home primarily for
Shakespearean celebrations, but incidentally
also for a good deal else that is worthiest of
repetition in our dramatic literature, whether
ancient or modern. They intended, indeed, to
concede, and even to approve the fact that
there have been dramatists both before and
after Shakespeare, just as " there were heroes
before Agamemnon," though longo interval lo.

The idea has seemed more suitable to the
occasion since the Festival's span was extended
to three weeks, and some of the non-Shakes-
pearean fare presented has proved remarkably
interesting. The difference between the ideal
of tragedy held by the Greek dramatists and
that of Shakespeare has been illustrated by
a very impressive production of the Orestean

3 1

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

trilogy of yEschylus. Typical work of Shakes-
peare's predecessors on the English stage has
been seen in four of the Chester " Mystery"
plays, and in Christopher Marlowe's " Ed-
ward II.," and his contemporaries have been
represented by Ben Jonson's " Every Man in
His Humour." Of later dramatists Wycherley
(adapted by Garrick), Sheridan, Goldsmith,
Tom Taylor, Lord Lytton, Mr. Stephen
Phillips, and Mr. G. E. Morrison and Mr.
R. P. Stewart, with their interesting play
" Don Quixote/' presenting the hero of Shake-
speare's great Spanish contemporary, Cervantes,
had divided the honours of these non-Shake-
spearean performances, with the addition of
certain one-act plays, down to last year. Then
the innovation of a prize of ^300 offered by
one of the governors of the Memorial Theatre
resulted in the selection, out of 315 plays
submitted, of " The Piper," a new version of
the Pied Piper of Hamelin's story by an
American poet, Josephine Preston Peabody
(Mrs. Lionel Marks).

It would almost seem that in his elaborate
classification of the drama, Polonius had the
Festival programme generally in view, for
surely no other repertoire company has ever
presented as varied a bill as that which forms

32

Photo by L. Caswall Smith

MRS. F. R. BENSON AS CONSTANCE

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

the annual three weeks' traffic of the Memorial
stage. But, thanks to the fine spirit of co-
operation in which many accomplished players
share the arduous work of rehearsal and per-
formance, it is possible to adopt the descrip-
tion given by Polonius himself in answer to
Hamlet's question, " What players are they ? "
and to say :

" The best actors in the world, either for
tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-
comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene indi-
vidable, or poem unlimited : Seneca cannot be
too heavy nor Plautus too light."

For among the players who have taken part
in the Memorial Theatre performances may be
named the following :

Mr. Henry Ainley. Mr. W. H. Calvert.

Mr. Oscar Asche. Mr. Louis Calvert.

Mr. Lewis Ball. Mr. James Carew.

Mr. Shiel Barry. Mr. Murray Carrington.

Mr. F. R. Benson. Mr. O. B. Clarence.

Mr. Charles Bibby. Mr. Hannam Clark.

Mr. Acton Bond. Mr. John Coleman.

Mr. Arthur Bourchier. Mr. Edward Compton.

Mr. Graham Browne. Mr. Thalberg Corbett.

Mr. Alfred Brydone. Mr. W. Creswick.

Mr. George Buchanan. Mr. Clarence Derwent.

Mr. H. Caine. Mr. John Drew.

33 c

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Mr. James B. Pagan.
Mr. George Fitzgerald.
Mr. Elliot Galer.
Mr. A. E. George.
Mr. William Gilbert.
Mr. Ben Greet.
Mr. Arthur Grenville.
Mr. Herbert Grimwood.
Mr. Walter Hampden.
Mr. Martin Harvey.
Mr. James Hearn.
Mr. Henry Herbert.
Mr. H. R. Hignett.
Mr. H. Halliwell Hobbes.
Mr. H. B. Irving.
Mr. H. Jarman.
Mr. Moffat Johnston.
Mr. Cyril Keightley.
Mr. C. Rann Kennedy.
Mr. Matheson Lang.
Mr. James Lewis.
Mr. Robert Loraine.
Mr. F. H. Macklin.
Mr. Eric Maxon.
Mr. H. O. Nicholson.
Mr. B. Iden Payne.

Miss Elinor Aickin.
Miss Alleyn.
Miss Sara Allgood.
Miss Mary Anderson.
Miss Dorothea Baird.
Miss Virginia Bateman
(Mrs. Edward Compton).

Mr. Stephen Phillips.

Mr. B. A. Pittar.

Mr. Nigel Playfair.

Mr. William Poel.

Mr. Charles Quartermaine.

Mr. Guy Rathbone.

Mr. J. Forbes-Robertson.

Mr. Jerrold Robertshaw.

Mr. Ian Robertson,

Mr. Frank Rodney.

Mr, Stratton Rodney.

Mr. Herbert Ross.

Mr. G. Kay Souper.

Mr. Otho Stuart.

Mr. Barry Sullivan.

Mr. E. Lyall Swete.

Mr. Osmond Tearle.

Sir Herbert Tree.

Mr. Hermann Vezin.

Mr. Lewis Waller.

Mr. Edward Warburton.

Mr. George Weir.

Mr. Arthur Whitby.

Mr. Harcourt Williams.

Mr. J. P. Wilson.

Mr. F. G. Worlock.

Miss Jessie Bateman.

Mrs. F. R. Benson.

Madame Sarah Bernhardt.

Mrs. Billington.

Miss Lilian Braithwaite.

Miss Tita Brand.

Miss Lily Bray ton.

34

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

Madame Marie Brema.
Miss Hutin Britton.
Miss Eleanor Calhoun.
Mrs. Charles Calvert.
Miss Elsie Chester.
Miss Constance Collier.
Miss Alice Denvil.
Miss Marion Denvil.
Miss N. de Silva.
Miss Frances Dillon.
Miss Gertrude Eliot.
Miss Beryl Faber.
Miss Violet Farebrother.
Miss Helen Faucit (Lady

Martin).

Miss Ada Ferrar.
Miss Beatrice Ferrar.
Miss Louie Freear
Miss Margaret Halstan.
Miss Leah Hanman.
Miss Helen Haye.
Miss Kate Hodson.
Miss Laura Johnson.
Miss Mary Kingsley.

Miss Beatrice Lamb.
Miss Nora Lancaster.
Miss Auriol Lee.
Miss Kitty Loftus.
Miss Marie Lohr.
Miss Madge M c lntosh.
Miss Wynne Matthison.
Miss Jean Mackinley.
Miss Evelyn Millard.
Miss Mabel Moore.
Madame Agnes Nicholls.
Miss Olive Noble.
Miss Mona K. Oram.
Miss Nancy Price.
Miss Ada Rehan.
Miss Constance Robertson.
Miss Saumarez.
Miss Gertrude Scott.
Miss Ellen Terry.
Miss Marion Terry.
Miss Violet Vanbrugh.
Miss Wallis.
Miss Genevieve Ward.
Miss Frances Wetherall.

Here, one may well feel confident, with
Polonius, is an artistic fellowship indeed equal
to every call. " Seneca cannot be too heavy,
nor Plautus too light," for the players at any
rate, and as for the audiences but that is
another story ! Certainly one may assume that at
Stratford, at any rate, Shakespeare's own work

35

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

more than holds its own against the Latin
author of whom another Elizabethan dramatist
said, " What are twelve kicks to a man who
can read Seneca ? " Plautus, curiously enough,
is from time to time represented on Stratford's
stage indirectly, but only to the extent to which
Shakespeare borrowed from him in " The
Comedy of Errors."

For this golden pomp of " Tragedy, Comedy,
History, Pastoral " from Shakespeare's work
which year by year finds " a local habitation "
on the Festival stage, a yearly larger and more
cosmopolitan series of audiences has gathered.
"I am always happy to meet persons who
perceive the transcendent superiority of Shake-
speare over all other writers/' said Emerson ;
and the same responsive pleasure seems largely
to animate the throng of visitors to Stratford's
Festival, which now supplies audiences reaching
a total some fourteen thousand strong in the
course of the three weeks' celebration at the
Memorial Theatre.

The founders of the Memorial Theatre
followed the ideal of Garrick in seeking to
establish at Stratford-upon-Avon a stage that
should prove not merely the occasional scene
of Shakespearean commemoration, but also a
fitting centre for the study of dramatic literature

36

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE

and the practice of the art of acting. The cir-
cumstances of modern life have counted against
the full development of this ideal. The number
of students or actors who can spare the time to
make a lengthy sojourn in a place where they
have no other cause for residence than the fre-
quenting of the Memorial Theatre and library,
has hitherto been limited. Yet the name of the
players who have shared in the high endeavour
of Stratford's undertaking now approaches
legion, and the weeks of their performances
in each year are growing into months. And
one very satisfactory result of the Festivals
is to be seen in the constant translating of
the Memorial productions to many another
stage. Visitors to Stratford's Festival cannot
but feel that something of the fitting qualities
of place and occasion has contributed to the
luminous revival of many of the plays for
which all acting " traditions" had long been
lost, and are accordingly glad that the work
contributed to the annual Festival is often re-
peated in London and other centres by the
players, to an extent which may be considered
to give to the Memorial productions a value
exceeding the scope of merely local commemo-
ration.

For the last thing that your serious Festival-
37

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

goer desires is that the Memorial Theatre
should remain, in all the fastness of its
Warwickshire riverside, the be-all and the
end-all of Shakespearean revival. And a con-
siderable part of the ideal which inspired its
founders is being carried into effect, while the
artistic impulse given to the actors' work sur-
vives in productions borne onward through the
land, to " give the world assurance " of Strat-
ford's great son

" Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world : O eyes sublime,
With tears and laughter for all time ! "

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

THE NATURE OF DRAMA

BY REGINALD R. BUCKLEY

THE NATURE OF DRAMA

IN the following chapters I set forth the main
lines of a personal and unreserved faith in
Stratford as a centre of Anglo-Celtic Art, the
circumference of which constantly extends.

My words have the peculiar value of being
the confession of a convert, who holds no sort
of official connection with the movement.

Any other value that they may have will be
enhanced by a study of the works to which
reference has been made in these pages.
Though, frankly, I write for the holiday-maker
rather than for the student.

So curious is the common attitude to the
theatre that it is worth our while to trace
dramatic origins, and to mark out clearly the
reasons for a more human and hopeful view of
the drama :

The Drama sprang from the people as an expression of
joy in community.

Long before Shakespeare, Folk Art existed as at once
a pleasure and an expression of racial religion.

41

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Shakespeare, through personal genius and kinship with
the spirit of his day, concentrated within himself its vigour
and tendencies.

Shakespeare is the standard-bearer of the race through
the ages.

The True Theatre is a Cathedral of Human Joy.

Wagner, by virtue of race-kinship, stands in close re-
lationship with our work, and, unlike Shakespeare, himself
imagined a Festival Theatre as a home of Indo-European
Art. Bayreuth was never intended as a Wagner Theatre.

If the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre is to cover the
range of national feeling, music-drama and choral singing
cannot be ignored, though the sectionising of different art-
forms has kept them apart from the modern theatre.

If Folk Art in all its branches reveals the Joy of Man-
kind, our contemporary drama, our architecture, and
education must clear a way through the tangled forest of
civilisation, giving us cities and villages as beautiful as the
dreams of our artists.

Though art must never preach or become
propagandist, unless it be the revelation of
beauty and life the artist is reduced to impo-
tence, and life itself becomes an unfulfilled
promise, which is a lie.

NOTE. Certain passages in these chapters are the embodi-
ment of ideas that have appeared in T.P.'s Magazine, the
Worlds Work, and T.PSs Weekly -, but in acknowledging my in-
debtedness to the editors, I doubt whether they could identify
them, so completely has the material been recast. R. R. B.

42

THE BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

DRAMA is the artistic presentation of elemental
things. Like human birth the true dramatic
conception must spring from the deep and
everlasting desire of light and life, the ever-
surging resurrection of form from chaos.

Living in a sophisticated period, yet buoyed
up with the hope of an age of greater beauty
and simplicity, let us consider for a moment the
origin of drama. By origin I do not mean
merely the beginning of things dramatic in
Britain, which led up to our chief glory,
Shakespeare, and our widest and noblest
period of personal and national expansion, but
I allude to the first gleamings of that com-
munal spirit that united men and women in
their mutual concept of beauty, and in the
physical expression of mutual joy and shared
emotion.

We know not where it first sprang to the
light any more than we can fix by surveyor's

43

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

science the exact place where man first beheld
woman with conscious love, where first Cain
smote Abel with deliberate hate, becoming
first a murderer and then, beholding his mis-
deeds, a solitary poet aghast at the part that
he had played.

But when mankind became tribal the daily
routine of .hunting, of fire and water, of behold-
ing the sun as a god and the stars as shining
seraphim, made Life itself a drama, and the
visible things of the world emblems of a
natural religion.

But when life became complex, when no
longer simple toil, love, and hate were the
end-all of existence, when death no more fell
like a dream, and the inherent waywardness
of man led him towards the complicated muddle
that we call civilisation, he had to invent some-
thing for a diversion : to call to his bard for
a song, to his young men and maidens for
a dance. Long before the days when religion
came to be a thing apart and the arts a luxury
or an amusement, in days comparatively simple
a gap had appeared between daily life and
the dances and songs of tribal religion and
enjoyment.

But the point that must be made plain before
any conception of the relationship of life and

44

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

art can be attempted, is that religious song
and dance were the first signs of spiritual
pleasure among those early peoples whose
daily business was one of hunting and war,
whose emotions were roughly love and hate.
The religion of these folk consisted in the
ceremonial worship of the forces of nature and
the powers that moved their own passions.

Their life itself was art, because it was true,
and truth and pleasure are the bases of all that
is noble in art or life.

Lest the reader weary of abstract ideas let
him join with me in this search for the true
sources of drama.

I propose first to describe simply the origin
of drama among a people who stood midway
between barbarism on the one hand and what
we know as civilisation on the other. I mean
the Greeks.

Then I shall ask the reader to follow, in a
separate chapter, the main lines of the dramatic
development that led to Shakespeare.

From that point we will try to show how the
art of Shakespeare was veritably the voice of a
people, and how through rekindling the fires
of true tribal or folk-art, and rallying round the
self-conscious plays of Shakespeare, we have
the drama once again in direct touch with

45

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

the hearty and joyous impulses of life, and
need no more be thralls to the superficial
and stupid manifestations of a denationalised
spirit.

A counterfeit presentation of life will -hang
upon our heels for all time, but in dealing with
the possibilities of our theatre we must look
deep into the past before we venture to step
confidently into the future.

The cult of Dionysos, the wine-god, grew
up in Diacria among farmers and herdsmen.
This is very significant in view of the folk-
revival of which we shall speak later. And in
reading Stuart-Glennie on the more modern
folk-songs and customs of Greece, I find that
much of this old Dionysian cult has become
intertwined with Christianity. But the associa-
tion of drama with joy is apparent not only at
the beginnings of its manifestation, but may
be traced through the history of folk-lore,
wherever, as in the case in question, we have
a more or less connected record. During
eleven months of each year, throughout the
whole of Attica, the worship of Dionysos took
place in dance and song. In all countries, in
all civilisations, dance and song have pre-
ceded plays and musical compositions. What
we know as rhythm, and in a lesser degree

46

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

rhyme, is simply an imitation of the primal
rhythm.

Some say that this primal rhythm was the
joy of man in the dance.

Among the Greeks it was held that it was
an imitation of the rhythm of Nature itself as
expressed by the waves of the sea. At the
festivals of Dionysos, especially when they
consecrated the wine in autumn, the dances
were human enough. To the modern mind
they would appear indelicate, as they repre-
sented in ceremonial movement not only the
harvest and the vintage, but birth and death.
Of course they were not indecent, but the
simplest and purest forms of dramatic art.
Dionysos was surrounded by priests, and each
year the wife of the high priest was wedded to
the god, a ceremony that was probably the
basis of one of our own folk-dances. Also he
was supposed to be surrounded by satyrs or
goat -like demons, who were personated at
festival time by the rustics.

The reader may wonder what all this has to
do with Stratford-upon-Avon. Let me warn
him that this book is devoted to the explanation
not alone of the Festival, which you yourself
can describe as well as I, but to a thousand
things of deep interest. These may at first

47

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

appear difficult and disconnected, and I cannot do
better than give you the keynote here and now.

Stratford is a town in which old and new
meet in Shakespeare. Every good workman,
or wife, or artist is conscious that love and
labour are holy and happy things. We want
to make the world beautiful : to spread ideas.
Therefore not only the plays of Shakespeare
but every form of beautiful life must flourish
here, so that its joyous influence may spread.
That is the reason that we have set no narrow
limits to the subjects of this discussion. Be-
ginning by tracing the healthy origin of outdoor
arts, a wide ground must be covered, and many
a digression pardoned. What is true of the
origin of dancing is true equally of all art.
For any work which does not spring direct
from human experience, as a spontaneous ex-
pression of pain or pleasure, is bad. It may
please the crowd for an hour, but cannot live
in the hearts of men.

If we go back to the beginnings of drama,
many a guiding idea comes to us. For the
early dances were the simple expression of a
simple life.

We have a curious side-light upon the age-
long use of this dancing. The Homeric period
takes us very far back, but the origin of the

48

Photo by Window & Grove

MISS ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

Sun-dances of the Red Indians may be traced
further.

In Europe, period has succeeded period more
rapidly. But North America lay fallow as it
were from the Stone Age to the beginning of
what is quite modern history. The tale of
Poi'a, the Star-boy, son of the Morning Star
and of an Indian maiden, is older than that of
Dionysos and the Greek goat-dancing. And it
was Poi'a, according to tribal lore, who taught
the Sun-dance to a race that knew the folk-
wisdom and had kinship with Earth and Sun
before any trace can be found of the same
thing in Europe.

This does not mean that folk-dancing began
in America, because probably the same im-
pulses were at work all over the world.

But it proves beyond any question that folk-
dancing was the first communal expression of
religious feeling and human joy in life.

The exact process by which dancing became
drama can be traced by continuing our view
of the Greeks. It is true equally of all races,
but not so capable of clear proof, because of
the essential difference between the Greek
and the Red Indian. Both of them differed
from the Briton, who about that time was
painted blue.

49 D

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

These Dionysian Festivals of the Greeks
were many, as has been seen. The dances
and songs gradually took upon themselves a
dramatic shape. Like the old English singing
games they were pantomimic, and it remained
merely to introduce semi-choruses and groups,
and thus to turn them into dramas.

Aristotle tells us, in his " Poetics," that
Tragedy and Comedy in their earlier stages
were improvisations.

The first definite record of drama may be
found in the accounts of Thespis, and his pro-
duction of plays at Lenaea, under the patronage
of Peisistratus, whose interest was divided be-
tween town-planning and the drama.

For it was about that time, curiously enough,
that the organisation of cities and " town-
planning " took a recognisable shape. The
marshalling of ideas in art and life occur as a
rule simultaneously, practical and ideal acting
and reacting upon one another.

This is the case to-day. For the first time
in the history of the English Stage its organisa-
tion and what may be called its " ideaography "
is being debated, while the relation of architec-
ture to civic life is another phase of a national
awakening.

These facts throw a new light upon the
50

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

Shakespearean age, for they help to reveal the
true reason why Shakespeare was in touch
with the life of his day, while we, as a nation,
are only beginning to be. This point must be
left, however, for the Shakespearean chapters.
One thing must be noticed here. The Eliza-
bethan plays contained characters by the dozen.
But not until Aeschylus was a second actor
introduced by the Greeks. The Thespian
plays were rather choral-dance-charades, with
leaders or spokesmen for the chorus, and one
actor, who was as it were the narrator, while
the chorus provided the commentary.

Sophocles, who was to the Greeks much as
was Wagner to the Germans, allowed himself
three actors. Also he began the use of painted
scenery instead of the ceremonial background.

The nature of that background and of the
stage is important, as throwing light upon
Shakespeare.

The stage, in three tiers like three key-
boards on an organ, was set ceremonially, an
altar at the back.

The Gods walked the top stage, the prota-
gonists the second, while the chorus moved
upon the third. 1

1 This is doubted by Mr. C. E. Montague in " Dramatic
Values," but I am not yet convinced. R, R. B.

51

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Contrast this with the Elizabethan theatre,
which may or may not have been covered, but
almost certainly was flat, abutting into the
audience like a prize-ring.

The Greeks allowed no change of scene, also
insisting upon unity of time, so that the Greek
drama had the intensity of a one-act play.

The free Elizabethan spirit permitted an un-
limited variety of scenes, which were portrayed
by word-painting and rhetoric.

At the same time I gravely doubt whether
in Shakespeare's time there was little or no
scenery. Historical accuracy it had not, as the
Italian plays of Shakespeare prove. But like
Sophocles, Shakespeare would be an innovator
and demand scenery, though his requirements
would have seemed modest to Sir Herbert
Tree. We know that the masques and
pageants of the period had scenery.

Another point which Shakespeare no doubt
had in common with the Greek dramatists was
the use of music, to which I shall refer later.

This question of music in relation to drama
is not understood widely.

Having evolved from song and dance the
Greek drama continued the tradition. The
dance rhythm got into the verse, which,
certainly from the time of Aeschylus, was

i

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

accompanied by music, to which the chorus
chanted and danced, and which sustained the
voice of the actors.
Therefore we find :

(a) The drama began as ceremonial song
and dance.

(b) Constituted a folk-festival for savages,
and, among the Greeks, for peasants.

(c} With the growth of the city became a
bond of civic ideals and an incarnation of
religious beliefs.

(d) Its form was that of music-drama, in
which the various arts were allied.

The reason for this digression is to lead up
to the following chapters, in which I shall urge
that

(a) The English folk-drama was a ruder
form of art closely akin to the Greek, and
arose from dances and songs of pagan wor-
ship.

(b} That, being allied with the work of the
Church, it became Christian.

(c} That, with the awakening of England,
first as a response to European learning, and
then owing to the national awakening of the
country under Elizabeth, the bucolic drama
became merged in the wider and deeper drama
of Shakespeare.

53

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

(d) That folk-customs and plays never died
out, and have survived to this day.

(e) That in them we have the forgotten well-
spring of English music and drama.

(/) These, being in their essence eminently
Shakespearean, are worthy of revival beside
the great plays.

(g) And that the living principle of folk-art
calls for modern expression, and provides us
with the best hope of a contemporary drama.

It is a good thing that the English drama
has lain fallow for so long. For only the best
has survived, and we have witnessed and may
observe daily the failure of a contemporary
stage that aims at external amusement. The
first principle of all drama is beauty, and unless
a play be a picture, a joy to the eye and ear,
the poet cannot venture into depths of meaning,
of philosophy or religion.

And that is the reason of the failure of con-
temporary drama as an art. It can succeed
commercially only through frivolity or vulgarity.
As soon as it becomes deep it becomes dull.

Whereas folk-art always is profound yet
never tires the hearer or the beholder.

In those days Art and Life were in some
sort of harmony. With us contemporary drama
has no place in our life and thought. In fact

54

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

very few people have any ideas upon the art
of living, and rely upon thoughtless habits.
Hence what we call " boredom."

Business men are disorderly and erratic,
because commerce is competitive. Men can-
not keep their heads level when they are
striving to get them above their fellows. The
modern market-place is like Donnybrook Fair.
On the other hand, the artist is orderly. The
painter, the musician, and the poet depend upon
harmony in colour, in tone, and in idea. Be-
cause the madness of Mammon creates chaos
and gloom, one needs the calm and the sim-
plicity of great art. And to produce good
work the artist must be erect, not scrambling
on all-fours for pennies. If we get out of
London on a horse-'bus we find ourselves on
solid earth beneath the open sky. Here we
may begin to study the Greeks, not with
a guide-book in the Parthenon, but "right
here," as the Americans say. Our Meteoro-
logical Office is a scientific institution. With
the Greeks it would have been a temple to
Athena. They worshipped the earth as
Demeter, the mother, unchanging in her love,
and Athena as goddess of air. Athena was
a young woman, for the weather was full of
feminine wiles and whims, even beneath the

55

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

beams of Apollo, who was the sun-god. Greek
mythology was the presentation of scientific
fact and religious belief under the beautiful
disguise of fairy tales.

There can be no doubt that the Greek ideals
proceeded from the Homeric Age. Then all
was primal and elemental. Man was a hero in
close contact with Neptune the sea-god, and
the harpies evil spirits of the air. On him
the beams of Apollo shone, and the breath of
Athena, giving him strength for his mighty
labours. Civilisation did not with them de-
stroy these ideas of gods and men. In our
own case, primitive conceptions have become
sophisticated. We have ethics, sociology, art,
dogma, all separated and controlled by com-
mittees and managers. The Greeks built up
their religion from Nature. Science added to
their lore. Poets were subconsciously religious,
because their poems and drajnas, even their
dances, were conceived as illustrations of reli-
gious truths. The priest and the artist hewed
their stone from the same elemental quarries.
In modern England the censorship taboos plays
drawn from the Scriptures. Public opinion re-
gards a religious novel as in bad taste. There-
fore the expressions of priest, poet, and politician
are addressed to different publics, and harmony

56

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

between pleasure, instruction, and statecraft is
unknown.

In Greece, religion and life itself were ex-
pressed and contained in the drama. In
England, in pre-Shakespearean days, the
Church held and controlled religious concep-
tion, and the English stage actually grew
from the Church, as will be seen in the next
chapter. The Church and Stage were in close
relation before Shakespeare's day. The task
of his immediate predecessors, and of himself,
was to render it popular and national.

And that is why, in pleading for a more
consistent attitude to folk-art, I am compelled
to compare the Greek with the British way of
looking at things.

Of religion as we know it the Greeks had
no idea. Sin was a meaningless term to them.
"Thou shalt not " would have proved an in-
centive, for liberty rather than the restraint of
duty lay at their core and centre. Their view
of Pan illustrated this point. Music to the
Greeks was a culture. It included music in
which word and thought lead, while Apollo's
lyre fills them with the sun's own light. The
works of Sophocles and the dramatists be-
longed to this kind, for they were more music-
dramas than plays. In our own day Elgar's

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

"Gerontius" is typical. Below this level they
reckoned work in which the intellectual or the
brutal predominated, in Elgar's " Kingdom,"
and in brutal works of genius such as " Pag-
liacci." Below this again, they set merely
sensuous tone-painting, played mostly on
Doric flutes. These were the pipes of Pan,
whose cult has begun again in artistic circles.
The root of Pan-worship lies in the belief that
the gratification of the senses is to be desired
up to a certain limit. It is a wholesome anti-
dote to asceticism, though the Greeks knew
what they were about in setting Pan beneath
Demeter, Athena, and Apollo a mere flute-
player on the mountain of the gods.

The British idea of unity is an Empire on
which the sun never sets. The Greek ideal
of a State was of an organic city, on which the
sun set every evening with perfect regularity
and beauty. Athens was about the size of a
large provincial town, and Plato thought that
its population of one hundred thousand rendered
it unwieldy. Each man was a citizen, taking a
direct and personal part in the corporate life.
The very word ''politics" implies "city-craft/'
That is to say, Athens was more an ideal
limited company, with directors, shareholders,
and employees, than a go - as - you - please

58

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

conglomeration of units, who only come into
contact with the community when they collide
with the rate-collector or fall into the clutches
of a policeman. The Greeks were aristocrats ;
their philosophers intelligent clubmen rather
than "dons" or professors. They employed
slaves to do manual work and for productive
labour, not that they might sit in idleness, but
to give time for the art of life.

Another reason for the simple, organic health
of Athens lay in the opposite direction. The
individual had a standard of conduct. Not
only was there a clear conception of the ideal
state as a city, but the Greeks lived up to their
gods. Apollo sprang from imagination, it is
true. But he was the dream of a perfect
manhood, at once an idol and an example.
The gymnasium was not a place for acrobatic
display, but a haunt of philosophers and their
school of followers. Nor did they alone ex-
ercise their tongues and their wits, but also
their bodies. If we can imagine an amal-
gam of, say Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr.
Sandow, we have a fair picture of the nobler
Greek. The Olympic games were held in
honour of Zeus, the all-father. Sacrifice,
prayer, and choral hymn took their places in
what was really a great play. Nude, for the

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

most part, the athletes were symbols of god-
like strength and striving. The prize was
not a purse, but a laurel crown. The victor's
triumph lay not in the raucous applause of a
rabble, but in an ode by one whose hand
could hurl a discus, whose heart was unafraid
of battle. They worshipped the Earth-mother
in the strength of Athena, and in their nobility
raised up man as Apollo in glory, even as the
evil hearts of men had crucified him as Christ.

From whatever point of view one regarded
the Greeks, their ideas and their religion were
mirrored in the drama. The dramatist then,
and to some extent the actor, were more than
the priests of a religion. In a degree they
were its creators.

What then is the God-bestowed gift that
enables a man to reveal, as Sophocles or
Shakespeare, the soul of a people?

The dramatist, as distinguished from the
mere playwright, the dramatic pedestrian, is
an artist who is at one with the universe and
at war with himself.

A deep unrest, coupled with a broad faith
and poetic vision, gave Shakespeare to us,
Dante to Italy, Goethe and Wagner to Ger-
many.

The dramatist may be Christian or Pagan,
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BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

but to be a maker of great dramas he must
deal with huge ideas and great simplicities,
unhampered by partialities or prejudices. His
Tragedy must be charged with that strange
tense feeling which comes to us on waking
from some terrible dream. His Comedy must
have the comprehensive wit of one who knows
both the rose and her thorns.

The quality nearest to the heart of Man is
Beauty, and it is from the hues of the rainbow
that he must draw his colour, from the sounds
of the air his music, from the green garment
of the earth his scene, and from man himself
the voice.

The dramatist has to inspire this setting
of nature with his human message. The man
to whom it is given to harness sound and
scene and sense has surely within him the
power to draw mankind to some worthy
place.

The means employed will vary according
to the age in which the dramatist lives ; and
climate, religion, laws, and customs each will
bear a part.

The technical questions of music, painting,
and the other arts are also of the greatest im-
portance in discussing the nature of drama.
It is generally admitted nowadays that the

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

drama is the fittest form, and the most fully
evolved means, for conveying the work of an
artist to an audience. Theatrical affairs have
not of late years maintained the dramatist in
the position of honour which once was an un-
contested right.

Assuming that the stage is a great frame
in which can be set up a picture, actually living
and moving, and granted that the poetic and
musical arts can sound all the harmonies of
nature, it follows that he who uses these means
to their full compass can produce an effect on
the emotions and senses impossible in any
other way.

The creative impulse presupposes a view
of life, and since impersonal ideas cannot be
rendered visible it is necessary to clothe them
in flesh. Just as the life-value physical and
spiritual of parents is clothed in the fleshly
body of the child, so must the persons of a
play embody the ideas, the life-value of the
dramatist. His means will vary ; his outlook
on life, the preponderance of certain gifts,
natural bias towards tragedy or comedy, will
shape his development as an artist, but one
thing alone will mark him great.

If his art be like a flame that burns up
the smallness of man's motives, if his wit can

62

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

disperse his musty opinions and make him a
hearty, emotional human it is well, and the
means are not important.

Nevertheless it is the intention of this book
to advocate a fuller development of our drama,
especially on its musical and folk festival side,
and to explain this technical evolution. And
in using the term " musical" let it be said at
once that it is this quality in Shakespeare that
makes him supreme. He does not use words
for mere argument, but as Beethoven uses
sound. And it is because all the arts seem
to have come together in Shakespeare that he
is to be taken as the very centre of the Merrie
England Movement.

In the great days of the Greek drama its
first function was ceremonial and religious.
It was the ritual of a human religion, whose
tenets were emotional, just as the ritual of a
modern Church is the ceremonial of divine or
revealed belief.

In the days of the Shakespeare Revival
the Renaissance, if you will the drama was
the popular festival, the holiday feast of a lusty
nation, clean of mind and limb.

To-day he would be a bold man who dare
attempt to define in a phrase the relation of
our drama to life.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

The two subjects are divided, though we
strive to bring them together.

The whole tendency of an advanced civilisa-
tion is overwork and specialism on the one
hand, and overplay and idleness on the other.

In Germany Bayreuth keeps alive a national
spirit, centring around Wagner.

Oberammergau holds the Festival of the
Passion. Festivals of a purely musical kind
are held in cathedral cities and great manu-
facturing centres. But nowhere have all these
things come together. The man of leisure
can travel and obtain them for himself.

But they have never been brought together
in one place. Their value depends upon three
qualities.

They give pleasure, and a dramatic festival
combines the advantages of a country holiday
with the enjoyment of the theatre.

All great art is national and religious in
origin, therefore a bond between men of the
same blood.

The laughter and pity of the human soul are
universal and cosmic, therefore common ground
for men and women of all creeds or races.

Everything at Stratford is English to the
core, but not insular. It appeals to the Anglo-
Celt, in fact to the whole Aryan race.

64

Photo by IV. & D. Doivney

SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE AS HAMLET

BEGINNINGS OF FOLK-ART

Beginning from Shakespeare the scope of
the Festival has extended, and it is the pur-
pose of this book to show that the drama is
but a focussing of the soul upon interesting
things. And the more bound up with the
varied interests of life the more we need a
common expression of our national spirit in
Festival and Song. And if in this book we
go beyond the intentions or scope of the
Governors 1 wishes, let it not be imputed to
us for evil.

This book is the expression of that non-
political but progressive spirit that is giving
the country new ideas in art and life. And
all these new ideas are as old as the hills.
Therein lies the need for drama. In the
works of the great sages the universal wisdom
and inspiration of the people lie sleeping.
When you are downtrodden and oppressed a
world's pity is yours, and your heavy hours
may be lightened by laughter. Our pride and
peculiarities receive the lash of comedy, and
our brotherhood with all men is made plain
in folk-plays and the song and dance of the
folk.

65 E

II

THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

WE have seen how primitive song and dance
revealed primal and elemental feeling, and
how among the Greeks these things developed
into a religious art expressive of the beliefs
and ideas of the people. And in Greek folk-
song to this day one may trace the inter-
weaving of Hellenic and Christian conceptions.
In these examples of peasant art, which are
moreover the groundwork of modern literature
in Athens, the words Olympos and Bethlehem
appear in close proximity.

The connection is not so clearly defined in
our own literature, but the developments are
quite as interesting.

It is wrong to suppose that the Elizabethan
age produced Shakespeare. However lusty,
brave, and imaginative a period may be, genius
is individual.

Had Shakespeare lived at the time of
Boadicea, he would have been a chanting
bard leading armies, and calls to " Lay on/'

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DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

or " To be or not to be ? " would have sounded
on the field and at the war council.

Had he been contemporary with Euripides,
Sophocles, and Aeschylus, "Macbeth" would
have been a one-act play, with no change of
scene, and it would have been filled with
references to many gods. As it is, Banquo's
ghost, the " trees of Birnam wood/' and the
witches, are far from Greek in conception.
Witches and ghosts are English to the tips
of their broomsticks and the depths of their
shadows. Walking trees would have been
unthinkable in so orderly and philosophic a
place as Athens.

Once indicate the nature of the pre-Shake-
speare drama, and we have the key to the
whole situation.

The English drama came into being through
the Church. Among savages such an institu-
tion did not exist, while in Athens it was
identical with the theatre. The temples of
the gods were for sacrifice : the theatre for
dramatic rites and worship.

In mediaeval England the Mass stood to
the people as an expression of divine things.
But, being in Latin, the religious rites required
popular interpretation and found it in the play.
When Bibles were unknown, and later when

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they were scarce, the clergy became actors,
the elder taking the men's parts and young
men the women's. And it is interesting to
note that the drama of Japan had a similar
origin and nature, and that women likewise
were at that time debarred from dramatic
work. These biblical plays had their origin
in very remote ages. Shortly after the destruc-
tion of the temple at Jerusalem the absence
of the usual worship was met with a play in
Greek. Though the writer was a Jew named
Ezekiel, it is significant to us that the language
of Hellas was used. Its origin was classic
rather than Jewish.

But English drama, if in this sense Greek
in origin, has been from the first a product
of the folk. Whether in song or dance or
the early biblical plays, or Shakespeare's own
works, it comes from the soil.

In France the opposite has been the case.
Racine and Corneille based their works on
classic models. All such attempts in this
country have led to failure.

The dramatic instincts of Christians had
gone to the building up of a ritual. The life
and sacrifice of Christ provided the basis of
a system of symbolism, expressed in action
and by Latin words.

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DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

What could be more natural than to make
the meaning clear to an unlettered peasantry
through acted scenes either in the church itself
or in the churchyard ?

The great festivals were of course Christmas
and Easter. Easter had been a pagan feast,
and it actually happened that the flowers offered
in the old Floralia, or again -in the Northern
worship of Freia, were devoted as an Easter
offering to the risen Christ.

Some writers believe that the fact that our
Christian festivals are, in nearly every case,
grafted upon some old pagan ceremony, robs
them of their original and sacred nature. But
I rejoice to think that each offering that we
make has not only its divine but its human
significance : that when I remember the bounty
of the Giver at harvest-time I am not unmind-
ful of Erda, the Earth - mother, in whom I
have community with the folk, with those who
are dead, or alive, or who yet are to be. I have
kinship with every man or woman who says
" Our Father," who in any way believes in the
brotherhood of man.

The dramas of "The Three Maries" and of
" The Descent into Hell " were among the first
of their kind. The former was known in the
tenth century, while the latter is mentioned

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

in " Piers Plowman." Of "The Descent"
we have records. On Easter Eve a procession
was formed outside the church. Approaching
one of the doors a character representing Christ
knocked. The guardian or porter of hell
sought to dissuade him from entering. But
at last the Master, victorious, broke through
and burst the gates.

On Easter Monday a similar charade or
parable took place, dealing with the walk to
Emmaus.

The early play of "The Three Kings" at
first was a simple ceremonial for Christmas
in which the kings standing on the altar steps
greeted the new-born babe. The way in which
these works developed explains the power of
a Church which, despite Roman ritual, appealed
to the national and human character of the
people at a time when the peasantry and many
of the nobility could not write. This was no
case of blind superstition, as some suppose,
but of a human and national form of religion
supplementing the mystic and sacramental.
This early art was popular because it grew
out of the folk. The play of " The Three
Maries" was built up until it included a
dramatic concept of Herod and his doings. In
a MS. of 1060 the part is written down. He

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DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

is portrayed as a bombastic and opinionated
fellow, subject to brain storms and maniacal
temper. Hence Shakespeare's allusion in
" Hamlet'' to those who " out-Herod Herod."
And the Herod of "Salome" is revealed by
Richard Strauss to-day as the neurotic scion
of a degenerate race.

Characterisation such as this was bound to
burst the boundary wall of illustrated scrip-
ture.

Though they ceased to be part of the actual
services of the Church, an intimate relationship
continued. The Mysteries were plays dealing
with the Scriptures, while Miracle plays were
based upon the lives of the saints. The first
of the latter was said to have been written by
a Benedictine nun, Hroswitha. Though a
German, living in the reign of Otto the Great,
in Saxony, she wrote in Latin. About 1125
Hilarius was writing Latin plays with occasional
lapses into the common speech. He was an
Englishman who studied under Abelard, and
his plays included works on Darius and David,
" The Raising of Lazarus," and, of course, a
nativity play, " St. Nicholas."

"It was performed on the Feast of the
Saint, when an actor was dressed to represent
the image of St. Nicholas, and stood in a niche

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in the church. To the shrine came a wealthy
heathen who, before taking a journey, com-
mitted his treasure to the keeping of the Saint.
But thieves entered, and on the heathen's
return the Saint stood guardian over a rifled
hold. Furious, he took a whip and lashed
the image, which thereupon assumed life,
descended, and accusing the robbers, bade
them restore their plunder. As all are amazed
at this marvel, lo, the inanimate image is once
more 'silent stone, the Saint himself appears,
and preaches Christ. The whole is typical of
the mediaeval mind, which not only creates
what it desires, but equally eliminates what
displeases it." 1

The whole point of true dramatic art lies in
that last sentence. As Wagner put it, the
artist creates for himself a vision of the future
and longs to be contained therein. Or better,
let us create an ideal concept of life in the
present, and let our practical, matter-of-fact
nation see to it that everyday life is up to
the standard of our dreams. Of course, the
modern dramatist, with a few exceptions, aims
at nothing but " striking situations/' Neither
he nor the manager, nor the poor, patient

1 " English Miracle Plays," by E. Hamilton Moore. (Sherratt
and Hughes.)

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DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

public take the thing seriously, and even the
jokes are painfully evolved to " bring down
the house/' So that the " patient playgoer"
of to-day would have been very much at sea
in the Middle Ages when people took things
cheerfully and seriously.

When one looks at the childhood of the
Middle Ages one fears that our own period is
one of " middle age."

This was going on all over Europe. Bohemia
had its Sepulchre plays, with a prayer for the
welfare of the folk. For the emotion was
national as well as religious. The Passion
Play of Oberammergau alone has survived, if
we except the " Punch and Judy" show, which
of course is a corrupt version of the play of
" Pontius Pilate." By "corrupt" I mean no
offence, for never do I miss a chance of
witnessing this ancient diversion.

One feature about these old plays, which
seems to me of the greatest importance, is that
they were played by communities representing
trades and occupations. For in modern times
the stage has become so remote from actuality
that not only are the events without meaning
and the dialogue without inspiration, but the
actors are, for the most part, competitive
specialists, taking no interest save in their

73

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

own professional skill and the consequent
applause and pay. The play of " Noah's
Deluge " was performed most appropriately by
the water-leaders and drawers of the Dee, not
by a number of isolated units, who knew more
about grease-paints than water.

The barbers and wax-chandlers of Chester
did a work in which appeared " God, Abraham,
Lot, Isaac, and Melchisedec." Why they did
this I cannot say, but they would be the better
barbers for it, and their candles would burn as
brightly.

The shepherds of Wakefield did a Nativity
play, which is a delightful example of a quality
which is the great glory of folk-art. It com-
bines rustic buffoonery with true religious feel-
ing. The shepherds were Yorkshire peasants,
and, though the author probably was a monk,
the transition from Wakefield to Bethlehem
has the simple inevitability of a game played
by children.

Turning to the Coventry Cycle, one finds
the shearmen engaged in a Nativity play. The
prophet Isaiah is the Prologue, who, in a
manner by no means unworthy of Isaiah, sets
out his prophecy. This in the natural sequence
is fulfilled by the Angel Gabriel. From this
point the play is full of interest and beauty,

74

DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

though the rustic humour of the Yorkshire
shepherds is lacking. And we cannot but
believe that the people were nearer to God
and to the humour and mystery of life in those
days. Popular amusement was based upon
Truth, upon the setting forth of vital ideas in
dramatic form.

By the end of the fourteenth century the
English countryside was alive with drama,
though it is very regrettable that Wycliffe and
the " reformers" stood out against a freedom
of religious expression which of course should
have appealed to their own zeal. In fact,
any shortcomings of their own deeds, and the
narrowness that led to so bitter a religious
struggle, may be set down to a certain lack of
broad humanity in their attitude to the freedom
of the early drama. The cause must have
suffered, and certainly the drama fell into
decay.

The Corpus Christi Festival often was
a national ceremony, as when Richard II.
beheld the plays at York in 1397. The feast
certainly tended to become a mere revel, and
to restore the true nature of Corpus Christi,
on the loth of June 1426, the Mayor, Peter
Buckley, and the citizens of York decreed that
the Sacramental procession should take place

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

on the vigil of the feast, and the play should
be performed on the actual day. This proves,
I think, that the original nature of English
drama, like the Greek, was religious, and that
in separating Church and Stage a foolish step
was taken.

The last performance of this York Cycle
took place in 1584, and it was in 1588 that
Shakespeare wrote "Love's Labour Lost."

The link between these early national plays
and the labours of the Elizabethans is un-
broken. The original MSS. of the York plays
was in all probability destroyed by Archbishop
Grindal, though Queen Elizabeth gave every
encouragement to the playwright and to nobles
who were willing to act as patrons to the Art
of Drama.

The outstanding note of the period was the
unity of all classes where plays were concerned.
Being thoroughly popular, they were, in the
absence of the press, veritable " chronicles of
the times."

For many years the lost art of the Mysteries
and Moralities lingered in Cornwall. There,
in open-air theatres, plays of the Creation, the
Passion, and the Resurrection were performed
tt> a people to whom the modern theatre of
Shakespeare was unknown. They were more

DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

mythical in conception and broader in dramatic
resource than those of the other cycles. And
there is every reason to suppose that anti-
phonal hymns on the lines of the Greek chorus
were used. This means that quite a large
body of the people took part, as in the modern
choral society, a fact worth remembering when
we consider the relation of modern choral art
to the stage.

The various Craft Guilds continued their
religious plays even when Protestantism had
effectively censored Roman Catholic works,
thus maintaining a catholicity apart from any
definite party.

The folk, being by nature dramatic, would
not give up a source of inspiration so full of
pleasure and self-expression.

It was inevitable that the Elizabethan theatre,
centring at the Globe and Blackfriars in London,
but taking root also at the houses and castles
of nobles all over the country, should to some
extent curb the creative spirit of the folk-play.
The revival of the Elizabethan stage was a
forward step that naturally left much that was
good in the lurch.

But not only was the folk-play overshadowed.
The classical models had been followed by
those to whom European travel and culture had

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

revealed the possibilities of polite art. And
naturally the nobles and elegants who tried to
imitate the classics without the genius of the
old authors, provided a very cold dish for
dilettanti and dabblers.

However crude the folk-plays were, and
they were not nearly so unskilful as might be
supposed, they have retained an interest and
vitality to this day. Were I to record the
doings of the " classicist" school the reader of
to-day would lose patience.

The secular drama of Shakespeare broke in
like a " sou'-wester." I am not at all sure
whether the victory was not too complete, and
that the old Craft Guild plays should not be
revived, as indeed has been the case with
" Everyman " revivals. Perhaps it would be
better to start again from the beginning, on
the lines of the modern village plays.

A careful study of their possibilities would
form part of the literary adviser's work, at the
Memorial Theatre, were any such policy decided
upon by the Governors.

For a musical quality may be found in these
old plays, a feature seldom mentioned by those
whose business it should be to reveal the
natural beauties of our arts. I have believed
for a long time that the finest work could never

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DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

be popular so long as it remained merely
literary, musical, or pictorial.

The literary tradition of Shakespeare almost
succeeded in banishing him from the theatre to
the schoolroom and lecture-hall.

On the other hand the qualities of music and
dance appeal strongly to the people. When
these qualities are absent from the drama
popular interest is driven away. The public
never were or ever can be interested in art
unless in some way they come into touch with
human and festive conditions.

Until for the purposes of this study I looked
fairly closely into the matter I did not know
to what an extent history had repeated itself.
If we look at these old dramas not only is
dramatic action and song present in a simple
form, but the very setting of them, in churches
or in the open air, forces us back to nature and
simplicity of stage-craft. Simple realism upon
the stage is right. A restful scene, or the
symbolism of a church, the essentially English
character of a scene in the garden of a castle,
brings back the modern stage-manager from
the amazing uselessness of an elaborate setting
in which no one has the faintest belief.

The only exception to this is, of course,
pageantry, a form of display that does not aim

79

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

at spectacular realism, but at generous and
romantic festivity.

This union of the arts in their simplest
forms, for the pleasure of the people, is the
peculiar glory of Stratford, and is destined in
ever greater degree to be her contribution to
the world-history of the stage. This the
critics are beginning to observe, and the re-
search of scholars reveals the beginning of the
movement in pre-Shakespearean days.

In the chapters upon Shakespeare I shall
show how musical were his devices, and how
essentially scenic his conceptions, that his
particular form of art lay midway between the
eternal rightness of the primitive folk-drama
and the wider developments which led to the
modern music drama.

Scholars like Mr. Sidney Lee, and special
pleaders on the lines of Mr. Frank Harris, have
done their best to explain Shakespeare. But
the stumbling-block always has been that the
people have not met them half-way, as would
have been the case had simpler forms of drama,
and a general conception of the interplay of
the arts, put them into close touch with his
idiom.

For instance, whenever songs occur in a
Shakespearean work, the action stops dead,

80

Photo by L. Caswall Smith

MISS GENEVIEVE WARD AS VOLUMNIA

DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

and a virtuoso display takes place. Then the
drama ambles on.

Yet if we look at " Childermas Day," a
miracle play done in the year 1512, a musical
epilogue followed, which either was a choral
dance or led up to a dance in which the audience
joined. Thus the gulf was bridged between
audience and player, much as is the case with
Miss Neal's folk-dances.

Of course this could not be done in the
regular theatre, though the spirit of it would
bind the player and audience more closely.
Children were trained to sing in these plays
so that music must have been an integral part
of them.

These children also took part in the acting,
a most human influence both for the children
and the drama. The late Mr. Goddard assured
us that in "The Adoration of the Shepherds"
(in the Towneley collection of plays) part-
singing was used.

Therefore we have authority in advocating
the union of the arts, and in setting up an ideal
of the theatre much wider than that of the
specialised spoken play. It will be seen later
that Shakespeare's art is above all rhapsodic,
and a form of song, inasmuch as all the
essential features of folk-art are to be found in

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

his dramas, richer and more sonorous, more
pliable and fluent, but not to be confused with
classical verse, nor their golden coinage to be
debased by the silver of stilted declamation,
nor the tinsel of realistic display.

82

Ill

CONCERNING WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

OUR century is the high tide of the personal
equation. And for that reason I want the
reader to enter into a conspiracy. Let us
imagine that we have just discovered Shake-
speare ; that his works have been banished
from the stage and his name forgotten. Then
let us discuss his personality and his accom-
plishments. By this I cast no slur upon critical
scholarship, which has taught us many things.
Without such men as Sidney Lee, the late
Dr. Furnival, Edward Dowden, Israel Gol-
lancz, and others ; and without the band of
Extension lecturers, we should not have the
educational forces of the world on the side
of popular drama. Shakespeare might, like
Marlowe, Chapman, Dekker, Ben Jonson,
and Tourneur, be cut off from the traffic of
the stage. Happily the scholar has not shunned
the playwright.

And in dealing with the personal aspect

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

of the man, I shall be forced to rely some-
what upon Mr. Frank Harris, who is at war
with the professors. The reason that I do
so is simple. Harris has emphasised the
humanity of Shakespeare, and we owe him
thanks for that.

Most of us believe that Shakespeare was
himself; a number of people think that he
was Bacon ; and a very select circle are quite
sure that he was the Duke of Rutland. To
Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence, William Shake-
speare was an illiterate fool, who lent his name
to a gentleman who produced literature of a
peculiarly streaky variety. But the certainty of
the Baconian has met its match in Mr. Harris,
whose book, "The Man Shakespeare," deals
boldly with the personal possibilities of the
poet.

In my summary of his life, in my suggestions
as to the possible motives of his works, I am
indebted to him and to the late Thomas Tyler,
who spent many years in tracing the fable and
fact of the poet's career.

He was the son of John Shakespeare, dealer
in leather, meat, and skins, at Stratford-upon-
Avon. Succeeding in business, John married
Mary Arden, who was of a well-known old
Catholic family. In 1568 John Shakespeare

CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

became bailiff of Stratford, and during his
year of office encouraged visiting companies
of actors. That was four years after the birth
of their first son, William, who was born on
April 23, 1 1564. He had free education at
Stratford Grammar School, and at the age of
thirteen began to work for his father, who was
in financial straits. His Latin and Greek pro-
bably were small, but, at the same time, not
less than that of the popular actor or dramatist
of to-day. By 1586 his father's ruin was com-
plete, and William Shakespeare, according to
Rowe, ran wild among companions as idle as
himself. But they were active upon occasion,
and the old tale of the poet's prosecution by
Sir Thomas Lucy for deer-stealing is a probable
one. So far the dramatist's training had been
admirable. Poverty, low companions, and ir-
regular schooling are better bases for creative
literature than a strictly academic career.

It is customary to regard a certain coarse-
ness that one finds in Shakespeare as char-
acteristic of the period. A study of Lyly and
the Euphuists fails to bear this out. The
polite literature of the day was polite. The
Queen, the men of action, and the modern school

1 This, though certainly the day of his death, probably is the
birthday also.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

of playwrights beginning with Marlowe, were
rough and outspoken in speech, and in action
unrestrained. So was Shakespeare at the
beginning of his career, and only towards the
end do we find his rude joy in life and speech
becoming mellowed by age and suffering. He
was like Nature herself, full of the impulse
of Spring, the prodigality of generous Summer,
the deeper tints of Autumn. An early death
prevented the cold of Winter from chilling his
blood or frosting the ripe fruit of his genius.

Concerning his marriage various opinions
have been set forth. But the most probable
is that the Hathaway wedding was a mistake
that drove the poet in upon himself and made
a man of him.

On November 27, 1582, the Bishop of
Worcester signed a licence for a marriage
between William Shakespeare and Anne
Whately. Two farmers, Sandell and Richard-
son, bound themselves in a surety of ^40 to
safeguard the Bishop in case of a " just cause
or impediment." This was forthcoming, inas-
much as Shakespeare was compelled to sub-
stitute Anne Hathaway, with whom he had
become entangled, for Anne Whately, whom
his free will had sought. In a word, the
marriage licence held good, but there was a

86

CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

change in the bride. On May 26, 1583, a
daughter was born to them, but the marriage
was unhappy. In " Twelfth Night" Shake-
speare gives one key to the trouble :

" Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him."

Shakespeare required a wife whom he could
mould, and a youth of eighteen finds it hard
to drive a woman of twenty-six. In 1585,
following close upon the birth of twins, Shake-
speare left Anne and Stratford, nor did he
return until some ten years later. Evidently
the poet determined to be free at all costs,
and for ever.

The nature of his domestic troubles may
be surmised by comparison with another great
dramatist of similar aims and scope.

Having closely examined the abundant evi-
dence in the case of Wagner and his unhappy
first marriage, I should be inclined to say that
Anne Hathaway, like Minna Planer, had a way
most trying to a young egoistic artist such as
Shakespeare no doubt was.

Though the evidence is scanty, it is clear
that the poet left Stratford for London, and
that his wife did not accompany him.

When Shakespeare was twenty-three "a

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

company of actors, under the nominal patron-
age of the Queen and Lord Leicester, visited
Stratford." Burbage was in it, and would no
doubt discuss the question of London, which
would have great attractions for an unsettled
young man. There is a story to the effect
that Shakespeare ran away, held horses at the
Blackfriars Theatre, and became a playwright
in the intervals between holding horses.

That he should not at once come to his own,
that a hack playwright like Greene should de-
scribe him as " Shake-scene," is not surprising.
He came to know the theatre in every phase
and feature by practical experience. But it
was probably to his early poems that he looked
for success, and only gradually realised what
an instrument the free stage of Elizabeth might
be for a new kind of art. For Shakespeare
was, for a time at least, the Richard Strauss
of England, which accounts for his slow pro-
gress. In this day, when half the art of
Shakespeare is clouded beneath fustian, the
symphonic character of his construction is lost.
Yet never could he have been so utterly wasted
as this story suggests.

It is improbable for several reasons. Shake-
speare was a member of a good family. Until
his father lost his money, which probably was

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CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

due to religious persecution, the Shakespeares
were well-to-do. And then the Ardens were
among the most important people of the
county. Of sound burgher stock on the one
hand, and something better on the maternal
side of the family, it is unlikely that William
Shakespeare, however out of favour, would
have gone to town without introductions. And
to a man of his abilities it is not likely that his
friends would allot menial work. Who were
those friends ?

One of them would be Ralph Hewins, a
governor of the Virginia Company. Indeed
it was a descendant of this gentleman, Mr.
W. A. S. Hewins, who reminded me of a
fact easily forgotten by writers of the present
day. Under the old highway system, at each
parish a vagabond might be detained in the
house of correction, and had William Shake-
speare run away without money or credentials,
his career would have been dramatic in another
sense. So that Shakespeare came to London
as most men come, with some sort of prospects.

Whether he came as a recruit with Burbage,
or later, armed with letters of introduction,
does not matter.

That Ralph Hewins would be available in
case of need cannot be proved. But it is a

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

fact that members of the families of Sandell
and Richardson, the names of the witnesses
to Shakespeare's marriage, appear in the Bret-
forton Parish Register (British Museum) as
witnesses to Hewins' wills. This forms some
sort of link.

Both the Ardens and the Hewins (which
word, by the way, has more than eighty varia-
tions of spelling, Euens, &c.) were Catholic
families. Ralph Hewins, too, was a cousin of
Sir G. Calvert (first Lord Baltimore), and was
connected through Virginia Company business
with the Earl of Southampton. The adven-
turous spirit of the age struck home. Without
the vivid interest so early kindled by the colo-
nising skill of the people, "The Tempest"
might never have received so fair a setting.
With men of mark to aid him in case of need
Shakespeare no doubt joined the theatrical
profession low down. But he entered by the
stage door, and did not stand with the horses.
Probably he began as actor, and gradually
found occasion to show his qualities as an
adapter of plays.

This preoccupation with the practical busi-
ness of the stage had a singular result. As a
rule the man who at an early age comes into
touch with the theatre becomes a part of the

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CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

machinery, accepts its traditions, and ceases to
think for himself.

But, looking at Shakespeare's beginnings,
what do we find ?

In " Love's Labour Lost," produced in 1588,
and therefore the first of his dramas, the scene
opens thus, as the King, Biron, and the others
enter :

" King. Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death ;
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour, which shall bate his scythe's keen

edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity."

Now take any pre- Shakespearean play.
Many of them begin with prologues. " Gor-
boduc," by Norton and Sackville, leads off
with an allegorical pantomime, accompanied
by music. Marlowe opens " Tamburlaine "
thus :

" I find myself aggrieved
Yet insufficient to express the same,
For it requires a great and thundering speech ! "

Shakespeare begins his first play with a
speech about Fame, just as Wagner, in his

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

early opera, " Rienzi," sets forth with blare
and blaze. It was not until I had copied these
lines that I discovered that the identical passage
had struck Mr. Harris, though he had not seen
fit to take the comparison further.

Now nearly all these dramatists began either
with a descriptive speech (in lieu of elaborate
scenery), or dumb show. Marlowe believes in
a " thundering speech/' but Shakespeare begins
on the personal note, and develops musically.

If you care to look at the opening speeches
of Shakespeare's plays, he always opens in this
way.

By " musically" I mean that he leads off,
not with a wordy description or a piece of
dumb show in the manner of his time, but
strikes a chord, as it were, from which he
develops gradually. We hear a great deal
about the looseness of construction of the
plays as compared with their rich value in
thought. This is not the case at all. Shake-
speare was first of all a musician by tempera-
ment not a logician. He had many threads
of ideas weaving themselves amongst his pages,
as in the " scores " of a Wagner or Strauss.

Now Mr. Harris has noted this philosophic
thread. Wrongly, in my opinion, he attributes
this to the dramatist's weaving of' personal

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CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

autobiographical details into the woof of his
plays.

Of course a man must draw upon his own
consciousness for his ideas, but at least as
many of those ideas will be imaginary as actual
records.

When Hamlet bade Ophelia "Get thee to a
nunnery," he was evincing the feeling that all
literary men experience when love hinders
their work. He was not necessarily recording
a similar scene in an actual love affair of his own.

Shakespeare had come to know life in every
phase at a period of intellectual activity, of
national and artistic renaissance. Therefore
he was not satisfied to write mechanical, ex-
citing plays, but sought, perhaps instinctively,
to colour them. And this colour took two
forms. His ideas upon life are woven like
many coloured strands of silk through a
tapestry upon which his action is portrayed
boldly. And the wealth of verbal music
apparent in his early poems, such as "Venus
and Adonis," is the musical medium by which
the fabric is made all of one piece.

There has been much talk of this structural
looseness. But, viewed from this standpoint,
there is none. The charge vanishes. Once
admit that Shakespeare used word and scene

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

musically, the existence of a plain matter-of-
fact drama of brief talk and quick action no
longer need be demanded.

As well might one cut out the music of an
opera and leave only the words and action.
That is what I mean by the symphonic use
of words a simultaneous development of the
body of the play and its soul the " play
beyond the play."

This gives at once the secret of Shake-
speare's power to please the child and charm
the scholar, to feast the eye and ear and at
the same time to satisfy the soul.

By this means his characters are developed
so that, without undue explanation or use of
allegory, each is a type or symbol, from
Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, to Falstaff, Polo-
nius, Caliban, Prospero, Beatrice, Benedict,
and Jaques.

If proof be needed of a quality apparent in the
plays, it is to be found in his attitude to music.

Take the lines of " Twelfth Night " :

" If Music be the food of Love, play on ;
Give me excess of it, that surfeiting
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again ; it had a dying fall :
Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south
That breathes upon a bank of violets/*
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CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

Not only does Shakespeare write about music ;
he hears it, and fain would make his words
more than words becoming orchestral. Thus
he writes words which have no sense, no
practical meaning, save the conjuring up of a
musical mood.

In his day, when chamber music among the
rich and folk-songs everywhere were common,
his audience would realise the suggestion.
Therefore, at his great lyrical moments, instead
of working up to a situation and bringing down
the curtain with a bang, he wafts this allur-
ing spell of suggested music. In "The
Tempest " :

" This music crept by me upon the waters
Allaying both their fury and their passion,
With its sweet air."

In early plays such as " Much Ado About
Nothing" songs are introduced. And in " The
Tempest," when the master had reached the
point at which we may do " what we will," Ariel
trips the earth.

My case is proved, so I will pass briefly to
the one remaining quality of Shakespeare,
which is not as a rule recognised his mysti-
cism. There is nothing decadent about the
man, nor does he stop at a general recognition

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

of God such as, in all ages, satisfies the general
body of men, including dramatic authors.

The Ardens were Catholics, and the fact of
John Shakespeare's financial straits, at a period
in history when well-found burgesses did not
lose their position suddenly, points to religious
persecution in his case. For it was no time of
toleration.

Shakespeare probably did not take any
risks. His mystical allusions and reference
to prayers (as in Desdemona's death scene)
are never exclusively Catholic, but they are
not the reflections of a plain " unsuperstitious
man." Just about that time the Rosicrucians
were making themselves felt, and it was said
that Bacon was among their earliest inquirers.
Not only the Catholic but the Lutheran type
of Nonconformist was a mystic. Therefore
the universal and godly mysticism of Shakes-
peare was in keeping with the popular feeling
at its best.

And if this theory be sound, coupled with
the idea of musical development, it accounts
for the quality of his plays. Where he is not
dominated by one or other of these qualities,
music and mysticism, he is given to platitude
as are all Englishmen.

"To be or not to be, that is the question?"

Photo by IV. & D. Downey

MR. J. FORBES-ROBERTSON AS HAMLET AND MISS GERTRUDE
ELIOT AS OPHELIA

CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

is common alike to the lover or the stock-
broker. " Is she the one woman?" "What
will Wall Street do?" Many of his famous
utterances have this direct simplicity of the
non-committal Englishman.

His reverence for law and order, his evident
delight in pageantry and Court life, would
never have set him beside Goethe and above
Dante, with Beethoven and akin to Wagner.

Faith, not slavish but ingrained, and Love,
not sentimental but passionate even lawless
have moulded for us a man, who is an in-
strument in spheral Hands.

What was this love of his? After leaving
Stratford his relations with his wife were
broken. In his will his "second best bed"
alone was left to her. The explanation has
been sought in Mary Fitton, the Dark Lady
of the Sonnets.

Mary Fitton was the second daughter of Sir
Edward Fitton, of Gawsworth, Cheshire. In
1595 she was one of the maids of honour to
Queen Elizabeth, at whose Court she made
a great stir. In 1600, Lord Herbert, son of
the Earl of Worcester, married another maid
of honour. The Queen attended the ceremony,
and Mary Fitton took part in the masque
that followed, and also led the dancing. Her

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

relationship with William Herbert, Earl of Pem-
broke, is well known. Her life at Court was
what we should describe as dissolute ; she and
her nobleman lover had a narrow escape of im-
prisonment. Nor does it appear that she was
faithful even to him. Therefore, the argument
that Mary could not be the object of Shake-
speare's lyrical passion does not hold good.
Indeed, in 1607 s ^e married Captain William
Polwhele, and she is also mentioned in con-
temporary records as the wife of Captain
Lougher. Neither of these, it would seem,
was more important in his day than Shake-
speare, who probably moved in a Bohemian
way among all grades of society, from the
lowest to the highest. Her own interest in
acting would, no doubt, bring her into direct
contact with him. And if, as seems likely, the
" Mr. W. H." to whom Shakespeare dedicated
the sonnets was William Herbert, it is quite
conceivable that he was in love with her and
sought this strange means of making his passion
known without undue offence to his friend.
Mr. Sidney Lee has described the theory as
" fantastic," and there are certainly anomalies.
Mary is described as having " a long nose, and
narrow face, and a weak, rounded, retiring
chin," and to be moreover fair. Now it is just

CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

possible that Shakespeare used the terms
" dark " or " black " with regard to her repu-
tation, which at one time was both. This
symbolism, too, would have made it easier
for him to dedicate the Sonnets to her lover,
while Mary herself would understand. The
following sonnet bears this interpretation,
though he would be a bold man to insist
unduly upon any theory in a matter that has
so little evidence to show :

" In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name ;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame ;
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited ; and they mourners seem
At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem :
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says, beauty should look so."

In his special plea, " The Man Shakespeare/'
Mr. Harris goes so far as to claim that in his
plays Shakespeare is consciously self-revealed.
This is a much more sensible supposition than

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

those by which the plays are reduced to the
level of a Baconian Chinese puzzle. But one
must accept the theory with caution, for equally
it is certain that Shakespeare, becoming in-
terested in various phases of life, desires to
reveal them, though incidentally dipping into
the palette of his own heart. No man who
had not known jealousy could have written
" Othello/' Othello is the outcast, the
Bohemian rather than the Moor, who has to
give up his love to those covered by the
whiteness of nobility. The Court of Elizabeth
was full of snobs.

Hamlet, in this limited sense, may be a
portrait of the poet. The inconsistency and
the curious compounding of decadence ; of in-
terest in art ; the artistic desire to work up
the " play-scene" till the Court is staggered by
its reality ; are actual and authentic revelations
of a man whose whole life was an attempt
to visualise himself and his philosophy, and
to make the world stare.

I shall never forget Irving in "Coriolanus,"
for it revealed, as no reading might, Shake-
speare's opinion of the people or " crowd," the
"wisdom of whose choice is rather to have
one's hat than one's heart." Shakespeare's
attitude to Falstaff, even to lago, is more

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CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE

tolerant than to the mob, who have no in-
dividuality, but yet are units.

As a rule some great motive such as fate,
ambition, or the great darkness of " Lear,"
dominates the whole drama. But Mr. Harris
holds that Mary Fitton and Shakespeare him-
self provide the very basis upon which the
great fabric of the plays was reared. There
may have been much of Malvolio in him as
well as Hamlet and Othello. Jaques and
Romeo, too, were in him. And the last of his
great works, " The Tempest," contains surely
a picture of Shakespeare in his own person,
which Extension lecturers used to sanction. It
is to be hoped that the boldness of Mr. Harris's
books will not have driven people to deny this
vital fact. For in Prospero we see Shake-
speare at the height of his powers, his life
" shipwrecked," yet still ruling a realm of fancy
and of faery, beside which the kingdoms of
this world are as dust.

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IV
THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

IN discussing Shakespeare from the plain man's
point of view it must not be thought that
scholarship in any way is underrated. At the
same time the Stratford movement, though
having behind it the steadying power of
scholarship, is above all things popular.

Shakespeare is important to us not because
he was a unique Englishman, but because he
is the typical Englishman. His reverence for
custom and pomp, his talk about love and
wine, the fact that he regarded Falstaff as
funny and Hamlet as tragic in a word, his
easy acceptance of authority, coupled with
occasional outbursts of emotion, are English to
a degree. Take Gonzalo in "The Tempest."
Has not Gonzalo the English attitude to
Utopias and Socialism ? He begins with a
fine scheme and then is gently laughed out of
it, being ruled by his betters, though in some
little danger from Caliban. If Shakespeare
intended this play to be his vision of a world

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THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

beautiful, a paradise regained, he never forgoes
the Englishman's luxury of laughing at ideals.
Shakespeare then is the reality of which John
Bull was but a caricature. Only once have I
seen a typical John Bull. It was in the lounge
of an hotel. A thick-set, honest, rude, and
podgy person came in, stood like a screen
before the fire, set his thumbs firmly in the
armholes of his waistcoat, and gazed round at
us with bovine stolidity. But, when he spoke,
it was not to assure with needless reiteration
that he would " never be a slave." He said a
few words in very broken English, and told us
that he was a Spaniard on his first visit to this
country. In England there never was, nor
ever can be, that strange phantom, that over-
solid ghost known as John Bull. I labour this
point because, when one talks of a national
movement in art, a chorus of critical ravens
deplore the tendency, believing that unless the
Briton become a cosmopolitan he will remain
" insular." Shakespeare, and other people who
live on islands, develop individualities. Some
day we may come across the John Bull of our
caricatures without having to go to Spain for
him.

Mr. Ernest Newman, one of our best musical
critics, challenged his opponents in the Folk

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THE SHAK^PEARE REVIVAL

Movement to set down on paper a description
of the typical Englishman. Shakespeare was
too clever and John Bull too stupid to use
as an illustration. Mr. Newman being the
cleverest of the anti-nationalists I gave him
a definition of the Englishman. I repeat it
here, because nothing could do more harm to
the Stratford Movement than to convey the
idea that we wish to foster a local type. The
English are a mixture of many races, pure in
one respect. We are Indo-Europeans, and
are kindred of the Celtic, Teutonic, and Indian
stock.

Emerson wrote that the Englishman was the
mud of all the races that is to say, the mixed
soil of Europe, piled up by the avalanche of
invasion, silted by the rivers of time. To this
day, the fair hair and blue eyes of Scarborough
and Whitby fishermen make one remember the
Vikings. Nor need I remind a musical critic
that the word Elgar bespeaks Norse descent,
and that in the music of Olaf and of British
Caractacus that blood cries aloud. The Nor-
man invasion did not dominate the English
type, but was absorbed. Who knows whether
the entente cordiale did not begin at Senlac ?
And not only have armed invaders fought
their way into the family circle, but each

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THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

county has moulded its type and its dialect,
throwing up defences against the common
enemy, Cosmopolitanism. And when I walk
along a London street, seeing Parsees, Kaffirs,
Frenchmen, Jews, Germans, and Spaniards,
London does not seem less English. These
barriers of race are everywhere in evidence.
Each face flies its own flag.

Mr. Newman held that all this talk about
nationality and race feeling was a pose, that
Reason, the sharp-tongued goddess, had broken
down these sentimental barriers. When
Shakespeare drew Shylock he showed his race
feeling. Though Shylock is the hero of the
work, no Jew would have pictured him as did
Shakespeare. Though I have several good
friends among the Jews, Reason has never
shown me that I am a Jew. But when Shake-
speare created Othello it was a very different
matter. The character is drawn as an English-
man, and only colour marks the difference.
The cleverest critic cannot acquit Shakespeare
of the natural race feelings common to all men.

" Reason is of all countries," says La Bruyre.
But if all countries were one, Reason would
have less opportunity for varied development.
True, nations depend upon each other for new
phases of thought and new expressions of art.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

We love Wagner none the less because his art
sprang from the soul of a people and was based
on folk-tales. But here is the flaw: "Our
good friends the nationalists and the folk-song
enthusiasts always seem to me to come to grief
here. Before we begin to found a ' national
school/ let us at least agree as to what the
national characteristics are." The critic wants
to find out first, by reason and science, what is
" national." The answer lies on our breakfast
tables, in the form of eggs and bacon or news-
papers. The food of the English, French, and
German replies to a question which abstract
reason stammers over. The fiction of England,
like our drama, cannot be mistaken. At the
same time the English race derives from so
many sources that it is difficult to find half-a-
dozen main characteristics. Admittedly we
are insular some one said that the Channel
was wider than the Atlantic. And this also
is true of the North Sea. The English univer-
sities, public schools, and games such as Rugby
football, are distinctive. The independence
that will not bow to militarism, and the public
opinion that bars the way to revolution, are at
once English. The modesty of the English-
man, who is content for his island (or rather
peninsula) to be a centre of self-governing

1 06

THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

colonies rather than a dominator of servile
States, is remarkable, especially as the land
was once a Roman colony.

Defoe, in " The True-born Englishman,"
says the last word on the fusion of the race :

" Fate jumbled them together, God knows how ;
Whatever they were, they're true-born English now."

This glorious two-edged sword of a poem
accepts the Englishman as a grotesque reality.
We are all foreigners very much at home ;
parvenus whose pride is our race ; insular and
world-wide ; we are at once a contradiction
and an interrogation. But we are not imagi-
nary, though passionate lovers of the past.
There seems always to be a demand for popular
versions of English mythology. Pageantry
and dancing are as much in the blood as in
the days of Shakespeare. Of this Dr. Charles
Harris, the Canadian conductor, is aware. In
his Colonial choral tours, whenever he wants
to impart a peculiarly English flavour, these
very folk-songs are sung. And does not
Tennyson surely a typical English poet
say, <c He is the best cosmopolite who loves
his native country best " ? The impartial man
is always abroad and never at home.

The entire significance of the Stratford
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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Movement lies in the race question. If we
have lost our national individuality, or even
are suspected of having lost it, our power of
corporate action and mutual sympathy are
weakened. We should be like men who were
not clear as to their own individuality.

Shakespeare reflected the Elizabethan age
as might a mirror. He is the banner-bearer
round whom we must rally if anything like
the Elizabethan spirit of enterprise and self-
preservation are to be regained. The tendency
of education and sentiment in the past has
been to regard Shakespeare as the tailor's
model of language rather than of character ;
as a profound philosopher, who used poetry
as a puzzle ; as a writer whom one should hold
in solemn awe, read as seldom as possible, and
whose plays are to be watched in a spirit of
solemn admiration.

We, in accepting him as a master, the master
indeed of the ceremonies of a national festival,
place his art upon a human basis :

He was an Englishman to the core,
born in the heart of England, and living
in the hearts of Englishmen.

As author of the Sonnets he is re-
vealed to us as a man of like passions with
1 08

THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

ourselves, purified in the fire of experi-
ence, rising from height to height by and
through his dramas.

Of his earlier plays, " Much Ado About
Nothing" holds the stage to-day because it
was the work of a man who had loved and
suffered in youth, till by reason of his buoyant
spirit he was able comically to view love,
giving us Beatrice and Benedick. Those two
characters are clad in the immortality born of a
comedy that can laugh at love without banality.

" Measure for Measure " wins additional
interest owing to the little recognised fact that
Richard Wagner used it as the poem of his
early opera " Liebesverbot."

It is the custom to smile in a superior way
at " The Two Gentlemen of Verona," and to
regard "Romeo and Juliet" as alternating
between sentiment and a melancholy passion
that leads to death. And in these two Verona
plays we are able to rebut the anti-nationalists.
The Italians themselves do not regard Shake-
speare as insular, despite the anachronisms
that are to be found there. The city of
Verona regards the Shakespearean connection
as a great honour. In November 1910 a bust
was set up there in honour of the great foreign

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

dramatist. They honoured him as we regard
Dante. The sculpture is the work of Renato
Cattani, and represents the tragic Shakespeare
standing by the reputed tomb of Juliet. The
Morning Post commenting upon this said some
interesting things about Italy and Italian feeling
as they differ from ours :

" Italian sentiment is more imaginative than
ours. It can ignore proprieties of fact and
date. It is no effort for the Italian mind to
assume a retrospective attitude. In England
it is different ; we are learning the lesson, as
the pageants of recent years witness ; but
Oxford venerates its mythical founder, King
Alfred, with less grace and natural acceptance
of the improbable than Italy displays in
honouring the legends of the Capitol. Not
that the English lack imagination ; but the
Italian imagination is more vivid, and its
exercise more spontaneous. Poetry, though
England is one of its favourite homes, is
treated with scanty acknowledgment by our
nation ; in Italy poetical sentiment is honoured
by all ; the look and dress of the people in
the street reveal a nation which is conscious
of beauty and not ashamed of it, the speech
and gesture of gondoliers and fruit-sellers are
poetical, it is never a long way to the ideal.

no

THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

" There is no limit to the friendly recogni-
tion of foreign talent : Byron, Shelley, the
Brownings, Winckelmann, Ruskin, have been
received into the commonwealth of Italian
letters ; busts and inscribed tablets decorate
the houses in which they lodged ; there is a
Piazza at Ravenna named after Byron, and
his sojourn at Venice, Verona, and Pisa is a
theme of never-failing interest. It is not only
that they were welcomed when they lived in
Italy, but their memory is accepted among
Italian memories. We, too, are hospitable
to strangers ; but we show more honour to
patriots than to poets, being more interested
in politics than in poetry. Hospitality is an
old custom in Verona."

And it is this spirit of an Italy beloved by
Shakespeare, though probably never visited
by him, that we desire to equal in the land
of his birth. When we remember the Medicis,
the wealth won on the Rialto, turned to the
service of beauty and to the glory of God,
one is surprised that a similar awakening of
national spirit is not more apparent here, for
it shines only rarely in the persons of a Charles
Flower, or in other directions, an Andrew
Carnegie.

It is not so much the generous spirit of
Ul

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

giving as the absence of any useful direction
for artistic expenditure that keeps us back.

For instance, if you enter the Valhalla of
Saxon heroes, set up by Ludwig II. near
Ratisbon, the first figure that meets your eye
is that of Alfred the Great. Yet, in these
days of National Service Leagues and Dread-
noughts, he, the originator of modern nation-
alism, is barely remembered, and mostly for his
lack of skill as a toaster of cakes.

And it is precisely this traditional spirit for
which the Stratford Movement stands, and
which has kept it alive with private endow-
ment, but entirely without public subsidy.
From an educational point of view " the
abstract chronicles of our times," as revealed
in the pageants and historical plays of Shake-
speare, are of chief importance.

And in a book which of necessity tries to
show how much more may be done in all
sections and domains of art, if all the publics
will centralise at Stratford, it is satisfactory
that, under Mr. Benson, this side of the work
has been carried out to the extreme limit, and
with complete success. The following plays
of this class have been produced at Stratford :
"King John/' "Richard II., 11 "Henry IV."
(Parts I. and II.), "Henry V.," " Henry VI."

112

Photo by Lang)

MR. LEWIS WALLER AS ROMEO

THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

(Parts I., II., and III.), and -Richard III."
and "Henry VIII."

Is there one of us, from the most superior
critic to the humble author of these words,
who would not have a clearer vision and a
brighter fire of national consciousness for this
experience ?

And when Mr. Benson produced them as
a continuous cycle, the panorama of genera-
tions passed before one's eyes like a vivid
dream.

This method of teaching history will in time
lighten the labours of schoolmasters, and invest
the details of history with a relevance and
force unthinkable without the vivid spectacle
of actual events.

I am not going to discuss the authorship
of " Henry VIII." Whoever wrote it, whether
in whole or part, it is Shakespearean drama,
and was produced a few years after the King's
death. The characters were as near to the
audience as are Gladstone, Beaconsfield, and
Parnell to us. Even in the legendary plays,
Shakespeare depicted men and women of his
own day, even when the scene was laid in
Bohemia.

Then we have the Roman plays, " Julius
Caesar," " Antony and Cleopatra/' especially

113 H

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

valuable in maintaining a balance, and pre-
venting our nationalism from degenerating into
insular drama. For even our critics contribute
to the breadth and humanity of the scheme.

And the others I should group thus, men-
tioning nothing that has not been played at
the Memorial Theatre :

"Hamlet," "Othello," "Macbeth," and
" King Lear," the plays of the soul,
each character of which reveals, as it
were, a possible phase or tendency of
our individual characters.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," "As
You Like It," and the other comedies.

"The Tempest," Shakespeare's vision of
the ideal world, peopled by human
beings, but a world in which Caliban
no longer has the mastery as he has
to-day in our midst. It is a world
ruled by Prospero, an Eden in which
Ferdinand and Miranda regain para-
dise for us.

These plays provide an atmosphere, a school
of beauty, to which humanity may turn, an
element in which the soul may bathe as does
the body in the veritable sea,

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THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

It remains to emphasise one point. Shake-
speare was and remains a contemporary
dramatist.

Looking back upon Shakespeare, we are
apt to say that he deals with the past.
In a sense this is true. But here lies the
significance of Stratford. A certain grandeur
and beauty, a splendour and large freedom,
have gone from us. An age of innovation,
prosperity, and Empire has swept us along till
even the poet of Imperial expansion has warned
us, " Lest we forget."

And now, when there are undoubted signs
that all is not well, when plutocracy, and to
a great extent alien wealth, has to a large
degree supplanted our aristocracy, while
democracy has not yet learned its enormous
responsibility, faith and tradition must speak
in the authentic voice of an England that was
great, and must sound their clarion call to the
ends of the earth, wherever the language of
Shakespeare and the bonds of race are ready
to respond.

I have heard people say that we must get
away from the past, and build up a drama of
to-day. If we cast away the Elizabethan ruff
for the high collar we lose little. But what
sort of civilisation are we to portray ?

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

If we place upon the stage modern reality,
what sort of picture will it make ?

In a hundred years our successors may have
a different answer. The honest answer now is
that we have lost much, and that were the
days of Elizabeth to come again we should be
the gainers.

Stratford is not building upon unholy founda-
tions a fool's paradise, but awaking traditions,
clothed in the warm flesh of a living and
throbbing actuality.

Modern drama gives us few pictures that
are either sane or splendid, whatever their age
or period. It is, as a rule, artificial and
" romantic," concerned with the more or less
exciting episodes in the lives of puppets, in
whose existence we do not for a moment
believe. " The Merry Wives of Windsor" is
a fair picture of what England was and might
well become again without deterioration.

Show me a similar comedy in contemporary
drama.

Where the Elizabethans had "As You Like
It" we must put up with German musical
comedies, or French farces, mutilated and
adapted till they have lost even the original
raciness that made them palatable to " flaneurs "
abroad.

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THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE

Where they had the tragedy of " Macbeth "
we have melodramas, which carry but a faint
echo of real horror, and fail to approach to the
humanity of great tragic art.

I mention no names because there would be
no point in censuring plays that are here to-day
and gone to-morrow. The works which were
in my mind in writing this will be forgotten
before the printer's proofs are corrected, but
new examples will bear me out.

On the other hand, I see no incongruity
in mentioning Galsworthy's " Justice" in the
same sentence as " Macbeth." The one deals
with ambition and pride, the other with failure
and disgrace.

And, just as Shakespeare's play must have
gone to the hearts of many in an age of bound-
less ambition and energy, so " Justice," with its
picture of a blind vengeance, strikes compassion
into the hearts of those who view the hopeless,
aimless struggle for life in the cities of to-day.
Both artists wrote the work in obedience to
their own need for creative expression, leaving
action to the world of action.

With so matter of fact a people as ours
there is no need to insist upon the obvious.
Our natural instinct to take pleasures seriously
provides the popular dramatist with a peculiarly

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

receptive audience. And I hope the time will
never come for the Memorial Theatre to open
its doors to an art that deals with problems in
a peddling fashion. The self-conscious play-
wright should be excluded.

Apparently the cities cannot detect the flimsy
in art, but only life and beauty can live in the
Festival town on the Avon.

Rather than tread the debateable ground of
individual reputations, let us dream of the ideal
theatre, with the actual achievement of Strat-
ford in our minds.

We have shown what Stratford has done,
and have considered the spirit of Shakespeare,
apart from the actual work of his hands.

It now remains to leave the tilled field and
to look upon the prairie, for there is no limit
to the possibilities of development.

To-day the Memorial Theatre is more alive
than ever, but in time it might fossilise. Yet
if it became formal, ceasing to develop and
refusing re-birth, surely the waters of the Avon
would turn into lead, and Shakespeare's birth-
place mark the burial of his ideals and our own.

118

A TEMPLE OF DREAMS : A PERSONAL REVERIE

THIS book has been to such an extent an
arrangement of various developments in folk-
art that one cannot exactly get the perspective.
Suppose, for instance, that in the process of
time it was found possible to build at Stratford
a great Cathedral of the Arts, what would it be
like ?

Two things are necessary for its accomplish-
ment :

A new conception of the theatre.

A clear idea of the kind of work that would
constitute a National Festival.

Within sight of the City of Dreams, fronting
with its terraces a broad and ever-flowing river,
stands the Dream Theatre. As yet it is
built only within the hearts of a few, though
its foundations lie deep in human conscious-
ness. " Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,"
on the banks of the Hudson or Avon, what
matter ! It is a National Theatre, not by official

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

control, but by its essential character. For it
will present on the stage the people's past, so
that, kindled by legendary glories, hopes may
beat higher and horizons expand. Standing
back somewhat from the river, its frontage
suggests a Greek temple, but the shape is
unusual. Rising as it is carried back, the
roof curves like a wave to another climax,
whence it falls to the rear, which is sym-
metrical in design. Its very shape suggests
the on-coming tide of the human spirit.

Nor is it the result of caprice, but is forced
upon the dream-architect by the need of stage
room. In order to change the scenes properly
there must be as much room above and below
the stage as there is between stage level and
the top of the proscenium arch. There must
not only be space for artists and stage hands,
but for scenery and machines of elaborate
character, and a revolving stage.

In this respect as in others the theatre is
modelled upon that at Bayreuth. But it is not
of mere brick and wood, nor, indeed, so costly
as the Prinz Regenten Theatre at Munich. Yet
time and reflection have enabled the dream-
architect to evolve several ideas which add to
the beauty and reduce the cost of the work.
The shape of the auditorium is that of an

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

amphitheatre, broadening as the seats rise,
tier above tier, so that each of the fifteen
hundred auditors is focussed upon the stage.

The orchestra is hidden from view, and is so
placed that the sound goes straight to the audi-
ence rather than rising up like a fog of sound.
And not only is it designed for a full orchestra,
but contains specially arranged seats for a
hidden chorus, for reasons that will follow,
when we discuss the nature of national art.

The seats are comfortable, and the colouring
of the simple decorations is quiet and restful.
The whole aim is to provide a means of hearing
and beholding. I see it clearly enough to notice
that the theatre is the central figure in a garden,
with restaurants that suggest quiet, intimate
little dinners between the acts, rather than the
rush and scramble of a theatre supper in town.
One minute before the acts begin a fanfare is
blown on trumpets. The lights are lowered,
and then extinguished. The doors are closed,
and the audience waits in primal darkness for
what ?

In that question lies the entire failure of the
art of the theatre. Given the most ideal condi-
tions, a perfect theatre in a pleasant place, en-
dowed by all the millionaires and attended by
the entire democracy, without a conception of

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national needs, of normal dramatic hunger, the
whole thing is a work of darkness.

A programme can only be arranged by con-
sidering man's needs, and how they are supplied
by our modern or ancient art.

If the needs of the people call for a new
revelation of the spirit of man or God, it will
be given.

First let us see what we hold in store.

The first aim of travel, the great result of
experience, is to know men of all kinds. There-
fore to ask for the works of Shakespeare would
seem a sound basis of any national repertory.

Apart from the universal human feeling of
Shakespeare, and his minute characterisation,
another kind of appeal needs satisfaction. The
broad instinct of sex is so dominant that
many a play is based upon some suggestive
presentation of it. The flippant nastiness that
passes the censor combines with the feather-
headed drawing-room play in spreading senti-
mental or unhealthy ideas. The actual passion
cannot be presented in words. And it is not
good for people to meet the God Eros unaware.
An experience of sexual passion, a trial spin of
the emotions, is possible through Wagner's
41 Tristan and Isolde." Both in origin and
conception this work is British. And if we go

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to the roots of the legend we find that Wagner
did not invent its modernity. The essential
idea of our legend is the lordship of Love, a
tyrant scheming always for the future, brushing
aside human obstacles, and using man and his
desires like the Immanent Will of Mr. Hardy's
" Dynasts." The work which happens to be
the crowning glory of Wagner shows us the
fiery glow of sunset, deepening to night, the
merging of Love in Death. Beginning with
physical passion as expressed in the music of
the prelude, every fibre of the soul is quickened
by the combined arts of Music and Philo-
sophy. This is indeed Aristotle's purification
by pity.

In the same way Wagner's " Parsifal" tells
the divine story of Youth becoming wise
through gradually unfolding knowledge, and
the growth of human sympathy.

The mystery of sex, and the idea of
Divine Love as revealed in Wagner's " Par-
sifal," are surely part of an orderly and in-
clusive scheme. Recent operatic experiences
preclude the criticism that such works could
not be done. But they would be treated as
festival days of a Nationalist Religion rather
than as after-dinner spectacles for a fashionable
mob. The probability is that the same artists

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

and the existing orchestras would excel them-
selves under new conditions. The new trans-
lations of the Wagnerian dramas, which permit
of the baton falling on the important syllables,
make it easy to hear the English words.

The function of the theatre does not stop at
the qualities we have mentioned :

A wide sweep of life in the works of
Shakespeare.

The qualities of sympathy and the passion
of sex, through Wagner.

The other classes may, however, be set out
very easily. In fact a summary would well
nigh explain them :

(a) The dramas of Shakespeare and Wagner,
alternating and supplementing each other, pro-
duced by existing organisations under the
direction of the Governors.

(6) Modern dramas of the kind suggested by
the names of Yeats, Shaw, Galsworthy, and
other distinctive creators.

(c] The Greek dramatists (as translated
by Gilbert Murray, with music by Granville
Bantock).

(d] The performance in connection with
each Festival of morris dances, folk-songs, and
English games.

(e] To bring down the best Choral Societies

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

to perform works of national importance, such
as "Gerontius," " Midnight," and " The Sun
God's Return."

(/) To foster the local singing of folk-song,
choral and solo, and to encourage the people
of the place to produce their own plays and
pageants representing their own history, ideals,
and jokes.

(g] To further include all art-work in the
form of drama, dance, or song, provided they
be vital and interesting.

(A) To accept and encourage the co-opera-
tion of all existing bodies, subject only to a
general control of policy by the Governors.

So far we have been concerned with an
imaginary theatre. But we have shown that,
by ignoring distinctions and varieties, a general
body of work exists that would cover a wide
range of human activity and interest. Not
only would all these plays and choral works
be produced, but a course of truly national
festivity would reign. Old harvest customs,
many of the folk-pleasures of pre-puritan times,
would return. With the exception of bear-
baiting, the jolly Middle Ages would awake to
the merrymaking of modernity.

Stratford is an ideal base for these operations,
and already the material and organisation exist.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

The idea of such a theatre on the banks
of the Hudson was formulated by Madame
Nordica some time ago. But Music was to
be supreme. The London National Theatre
project at present goes to the other extreme.
In the book of plans Music shares a chapter
with Refreshments. No doubt Wagner would
figure on the wine-list, among the hocks ; and
Elgar represent Hereford cider.

But at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre,
Stratford-upon-Avon, the only endowed theatre
in England, despite the handicap of a small
building, the main lines of this dream-theatre
are being carried out. In addition to Shake-
speare, and dramatic works old and new, folk-
song and old English dances are among the
festivities.

These forms of art appeal to the race. And
when I write of Anglo-Celtic feeling I include
America, believing that, as in Shakespeare's
day, we are one people, and that our common
heritage of folk-art would bridge over the in-
evitable superficial differences that have arisen.
In England or America, through Shakespeare,
this dream will come true.

And if the reader will turn to the summary
of the proposed repertory it will be seen that
all the varieties set down are popular and

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

successful in their several ways, though never
have all these forms been brought together in
one scheme.

So far do I regard the communal nature of
the undertaking as important, that not only
should the performances be part of an Annual
Festival, but those working for the theatre
should be united by a common bond. In
connection with the theatre would be a handi-
craft guild and a farm colony, so that the
artists and stage-hands might, as far as feasible,
live a healthy outdoor life. Of course in the
case of special actors, orchestral players, and
the few necessary specialists, this could not be
managed. Isolde could not be expected to
hoe, nor Ophelia to weed. But the over-
specialisation of the artist is one of the crimes
of the commercial theatre, a thing unheard
of in Greece, and only deemed essential in
degenerate times. The stagnant life of the
agriculturist has its counterpart in the neo-
monastic condition of the actor's craft.

This reminds one that England's healthiest
art is that of the Choral North, where men
and women sing for the love of the work, and
find that it helps rather than hinders their daily
labours. And it would seem that, if a popular
national drama is to arise, peculiarly expressive

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

of our own life in the legends of our country,
the voice of the people must be heard in a
literal sense. And that is why, in my imagi-
nary orchestra pit, I left places for the singers.

Just as in the Greek dramas the Chorus
represents the Mass, and in the same way
that Wagner's orchestra comments upon the
action through music, we must incorporate the
chorus of oratorio with the opera in the drama
of the future. How much better would it have
been if the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde
actually sang to us the nature of love, rather
than leaving it to the unaided orchestra. For
the ordinary man does not understand Wagner
without explanation.

The subject matter of such choral dramas
naturally would be Anglo-Celtic. Wagner
sought his material in the quarry of the
Nibelungenlied, and put into his presentment
his own personal political opinions quite as
caustically as does Mr. Shaw. The difference
lies in the fact that Wagner was in love with
beauty, while Mr. Shaw, being a puritan, puts
duty before dreams. The same idea obsessed
Oscar Wilde. He was so ardent a sociologist
that he made a point of "not talking shop,"
which accounts for " The Importance of Being
Earnest." Wagner, having genius instead of

128

Photo by L. Casvuall Smith

MISS CONSTANCE COLLIER AS JULIET

A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

manners, writes his " Ring," with Siegfried the
Superman, Brunnhilde the suffragette, Alberich
the millionaire, and Mrs. Grundy in the person
of Fricka. Already Lord Howard de Walden
and Mr. Holbrooke have written and composed
a choral drama based on a tale in the Mabin-
ogion. While, as long ago as November 1908,
the Leeds Symphony Orchestra performed an
excerpt from another by Mr. Rutland Boughton
and myself, dealing with the birth of Arthur.
For Arthur seems to us typical of the Super-
man that we need, a son of human and spiritual
passion, born of the primal longing of Uther,
and the beauty and yearning of Igraine, the
free and unfettered woman, for whom the age
cries without ceasing. Mr. Hadley's Arthurian
works prove him to be artistically our brother,
an American knight of the Table Round.
And when composers and poets unite to clothe
the thoughts of to-day in the beauty of the
past, the gropings of science and the dreams
of philosophers will become vocal. No longer
will wisdom be the secret possession of the
sage, but, clad in loveliness, its expression will
be the joyful religion of the folk. And the
choral form, united with the dramatic, enables
the orchestral chorus to speak out with the
tones of a giant whatever prophetic message

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

or commentary upon the action be called forth
by necessity. Modern opera is the plaything
of fools. If we turn to oratorio we find its
more recent developments entirely hopeful.
But it cannot be national and in the broad
sense popular so long as the Angel in Elgar' s
" Gerontius " wears the dress of the ball-room,
and bows to the audience like a ballad singer.
And he who has met Nietszche's " Zarathus-
tra" in evening dress upon the concert plat-
form must, in Nietzschean phrase, "hold his
nose."

Of course these works of Delius and Elgar
are not choral dramas, but at the Dream
Theatre, with hidden chorus and orchestra,
and suitably gowned principals on a twilight
stage, the Christianity of Elgar and the Nietz-
scheanity of Delius, or the Omarian philosophy
of Granville Bantock, would be freed from the
absurdity of concert-platform treatment.

Then again there are the old folk-plays ;
" Everyman " ; the works of the Chester and
Coventry Cycles ; which always were and will
be popular, yet have nothing in common with
the theatre as we know it.

I have found great, but unhappily solitary
pleasure, in reading the Wakefield Cycle,
especially the Second Nativity Play of the

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

Shepherds. But these, with their holy com-
pounds of buffoonery and mystery, are not
for individuals but for crowds. In fact the
idea of " Home Counties," in The World's
Work for September (1910), for an open-
air theatre, would at least give us these plays
again, though music-drama could not live out
of doors.

At the risk of repetition, but for the sake
of clearness, I will set down a typical pro-
gramme, reminding the reader that not a single
feature of this Dream Theatre scheme is
original except the conception of a unity of
the Arts, as the basis of a popular national
folk worship, in place of the flounderings of
the modern theatre, both in deep and shallow
waters. Each type and variety of the following
productions have been successful in their own
areas :

A WEEK'S WORK AT THE TEMPLE
OF DREAMS

(The Festival to be under the control of the Dream
Theatre Governors, the main tendency being to centralise
Anglo-Saxon Art around the personality of Shakespeare, by
means of his works, and to produce other works akin to
them in folk-spirit.)

COMEDY DAY. Revels, Dancing, and Singing Games,
followed by " As You Like It."

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

CHORAL DAY. "Thus Spake Zarathustra." Delius.

Choral Variations of National Folk-Songs. ( Various?)

" The Dream of Gerontius." Elgar.

"Death and Transfiguration," Tone Poem. Strauss.

Music DRAMA. "Tristan and Isolde." Wagner.
(Orchestra and company from the capital.)

GREEK PLAY. " Orestes," "CEdipus," or " Hippolytus."
(Produced with music, in English, by the Shake-
spearean Company.)

MODERN COMEDY. Social satire, Irish folk-plays, or pan-
tomime.

TRAGEDY DAY. A special production, with new music and
full orchestra, of " Hamlet," " Othello," or " Macbeth."

LOCAL REVELS. Dancing and Song by people of the
place, and, if possible, an original local play, or a
burlesque presentation of the Temple Ideals. This is
an annual feature in the life of the Garden City at
Letchworth.

CHORAL DRAMA. Anglo- Celtic Legendary work, with
orchestra, and provincial Festival Chorus.

CLOSING DAY. Pageant and Procession, followed by a
performance of " The Tempest."

The last day I would devote to the pro-
duction of a mediaeval play from one of the
old Cycles, on an open-air stage, exactly as in
the old days. So far as could be managed,
the whole town would be in costume, and the
play would be followed by an old English
carnival and a river fte.

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

A programme of this nature would be
varied and elaborated as time went on. In
detail it is assailable, but each form of popular
art has its place.

There can be no doubt of the value of such
an environment, even for a few days. The
modern city would be dingy to eyes that had
been fed upon the dreams and laughter, the
beauty and wisdom of such a modern Camelot.
The spirit of the Table Round would fill this
tourney of the arts. And, like Arthur's
knights, men would set out thence in quest of
the Graal. For the Graal of the Modern
surely is the light that banishes ugliness, which
alone is evil.

If our cities were made beautiful, if Apollo
slew Mammon, the wealth of the world would
for its own sake sweep away the suffering and
the stupidity from which our civilisation de-
rives its woes. Just as the cruder forms of
Christianity taught men to suffer, so the living
Art and the living Christ warn him that the
cup is ready and the vine is ripe. In the
spread of a glorious dissatisfaction the artist
is the torch-bearer. But he is alone, and only
when the nation, the wider family circle of
to-morrow, meets together to behold and to
enjoy in community, is art of any use. And

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

lest this theatre become a shadow show, it is
necessary to link it with a living body of men,
as an integral part of their township.

Its realisation depends upon co-operation
between those who see kinship between handi-
craft, healthy outdoor life and agriculture, and
the Arts. Do not Wagner, Whitman, Millet,
Morris, and G. F. Watts prove the kinship?
Even those who wish Art to educate or
teach, in a literal sense, are feeling after the
same idea.

Art, like any other form of religion, is an
expression of truth, not a form of propaganda.
And to express a true life we must create an
environment. When a town has been evolved,
which is the very centre of everything Anglo-
Celtic, when the physical and spiritual culture
of the nation looks to it as a place of health
and good life, there will be something to show
for the theatre as the rallying point, as the
Cathedral of Beauty. Being a privately en-
dowed enterprise, to a great degree supported
by the public, it will not languish upon a sub-
sidy nor strive to please a rabble. To attract
the people it must, at the lowest possible cost,
bring together all classes and conditions for
the double purpose of healthy holiday and new
surroundings.

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A TEMPLE OF DREAMS

The Temple Theatre as I see it is near
the City of Dreams, which waits always for
destiny. It is not too near the busy haunts
of men. Only those to whom the Festival
Spirit calls will trouble to come. Away from
the bustle it stands where mediaeval memory
clings, watered by pure raindrops from the
clearing skies of our own day.

It is surrounded by trees, with its houses
and workshops, and its agricultural belt. The
fanfare has sounded, and the audience enters
the building as the sun in loving strength burns
its roof to fiery bronze. For therein glow
the hearts of men, quickened by " the emotion
of multitude."

And, after it is all over, can you not see the
loungers on the landing-stage, watching the
launches float down the river to the town, as
the moonlight shimmers over the calm that
follows great emotion ?

Or, better still, can you not hear the shrill
whistle of an engine that is to take back to
their labour a thousand toilers, who, having
followed a local chorus to the Dream Temple,
will have heard also the glory that was Greece,
and the freedom that fires the soul of a
people ?

135

VI

WAGNER AND HIS RELATION TO
SHAKESPEARE

HAVING pictured our ideal theatre, and seen
the analogy that exists respecting our own
national spirit and that of the Greeks, we may
now bind our ideas together by considering
Wagner as growing out of Shakespeare on the
one hand and the dramatists of Athens on the
other.

Shakespeare, in Meredith's phrase, was
" broad as ten thousand beeves at pasture."
Wagner was narrow. His was the art of
concentration, of unity burning to a point of
fire to kindle emotion.

In " Art and Revolution," one of his finest
essays, he says that "we cannot make one
step forward without being brought face to
face with its connection with the Art of ancient
Greece."

And he sums up the Greek people under
the symbol of Apollo, "with all the traits of

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WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

energetic earnestness, beautiful and strong."
It was thus, he says, that Aeschylus knew
him. And when the tragic poet awakened
Apollo to speech, that is to say, when all
that was noble in the various arts was drawn
together in the composite art of drama, man
might at last see himself, in all laughter and
suffering, beneath the chastening anguish of
Oedipus, in the divine sacrifice of Iphigenia,
in the agony of Antigone, or under the lash
of Aristophanes. Life became vocal and
visible to him. His public re-creation, his
religion, and his philosophy bore the mark
of manhood.

But he knew also that man in his degra-
dation, amid the sorrows that a complex
civilisation had laid upon him, had cast off
the pride of manly strength. His religion
was no longer even an echo of that strong
Voice which came "not to bring peace but
a sword," and bore small likeness to the Healer
and Comforter of mankind, but carried itself
meekly amid tyrannies, and was used by the
rich to keep the poor in their places. In fact
the poison of oligarchy had eaten away the
Christian spirit of community. Yet beside all
this was a changed world. The true Christian
ideal was not alien to the Greek. For while

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Athens knew the curse of slavery, and had
shed the petals of her roseate glory in the
sunset that was destruction, the armour of
the Christian was but rusty through misuse,
and cheapened to some extent by the mean
spirit of the times. Therefore Wagner saw that
in Hellenism lay the hope of his generation.

Therefore in Wagner's dramas we find from
" Tannhauser " to " Parsifal " the pure doctrines
of Christ, in the " Ring of the Nibelungs" the
spirit of Apollo, and in "The Meistersingers "
the united strength of golden Hellenism and
ruddy mediaeval faith, and the folk.

Wagner held that Art must be at once
a religion and a re-creation. From the first
his aims were conscious, while Shakespeare's
probably were not. There may be any number
of conjectures as to the nature of Hamlet's mad-
ness. But in the case of Wagner's creations
there is never a shadow of doubt as to his
meaning among people to whom words and
actions convey any ideas at all. 1 The un-
conscious Art of Shakespeare gives the breadth
of Meredith's ten thousand beeves at pasture,
while Wagner, with his conscious, propagandist
music-dramas, is mounted upon horse-back,

1 Except in the incorrect versions usually seen in England,
which are not easy to follow. R. R, B.

138

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

and, like his Valkyries, bears us straight to the
Walhalla of his conceptions.

Perhaps the first of the Wagnerian works
to examine closely should be " Tristan and
Isolde." It is the one above all which reveals
Wagner as the perfect artist, complex in his
means and absolutely simple in his results.
Love is the phase of life most often attempted
by the artist, usually with the worst results.
Either he is a sentimentalist, dealing only with
the absurdities and the affectations that attend
those to whom love is a form of sickness rather
than healthy normality. Or, being essentially
a beastly or erotic man, he smears his canvas
or degrades his stage with gross and equally
abnormal pictures of the worse than animal
side of the subject.

Now, to a clean man love is the delight
in beauty, personified in one woman, whom he
regards first as comrade and equal, and then,
diving deep into his primal nature, longs for
as wife. Or, from the woman's point of
view, man becomes a symbol of strength and
energy, inspiring trust and at the same time
marking him out as a companion and mate.

The complications of marriage may provide
a comedy, but the only sane and healthy
tragedy that can arise from love is in fate

139

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

and circumstance coming between the lovers,
the eternal conflict of Love and Death.

Love is the expression of the race spirit
working for its continuance, and a drama
dealing with it should be so far religious that
it reveals to the beholder the nature of the
passion, the need for a complete union of body
and soul. The capacity of men and women
for love, and their standard and measure of it,
determine the whole future of the race, as
well as their personal happiness.

With Wagner as with Shakespeare, their
ideas went along two main roads : the love
of women and of their own nation, with
occasional flashes of mystical vision.

Wagner's drama of love is not only of
supreme interest for its own sake, as essen-
tially a British tale, with a direct appeal to
normal feeling. But, in comparison with
" Romeo and Juliet," a few points of technical
interest stand out.

" Romeo and Juliet" had long been held the
full expression of human love. And so might
it have remained had not form and methods
changed ; and had not human thought also
progressed. Shakespeare's view was broad
enough! But he had to express himself by
the poet's art alone, and, owing to the spirit

140

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

of his times, to avoid introspection and
psychology.

So far as method goes I know of no more
useful comparison than that of Scene 2, Act ii.,
of both dramas. The scenic atmosphere is
practically the same in both cases.

"Romeo. But, soft, what light through yonder window

breaks ?

It is the east and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she ;
Be not her maid since she is envious ;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off."

(Thus Romeo comes to Juliet. But Isolde
is able to await Tristan without having to
create an atmosphere of love-sickness, which
Romeo does by using the words I have itali-
cised. The orchestra and the scene do that
much better.)

The lovers meet :

"Juliet. My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of

thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound ;
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague ? "

(They then talk of the scaling of the garden
walls, and more serious perils.)

141

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL
The other lovers, equally in danger :

" Tristan. Isolde ! Beloved !
Isolde. Tristan ! Beloved !
Art thou mine ? "

The orchestra and the scene render a fuller
greeting superfluous. The outward expression
of human love is a matter in which words take
an important but not the first place. " Tristan "
seems to me to have superseded " Romeo
and Juliet," whereas " The Tempest" has no
parallel in more modern Art. In fact, if one
goes through the whole range of Shakespeare's
plays comparing him with the mastery of other
men, there are but few among them that have
become out of date. In common with all
lasting drama, " Tristan and Isolde" is based
upon old legend. There are two parts of our
national lore which are universal the Graal
and the Tristan stories.

With these two I propose to deal, holding
that they are part of the essential art of Britain,
whose trunk and core is Shakespeare, but
whose branches widen.

He has purged the old story of its dross ;
the alloy is taken away and the pure gold
remains. The result is that we are willing
to forget conflicting versions, and to accept

142

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

Wagner's drama as the true portrayal true
because it is deeper and more human than the
mere echoes of tradition, which have grown
distant and dim.

Think of the old story of Bretagne, that
tempest of suffering and emotion that was
never stilled, the great tragedy that goes from
Life into Death, but comes forth again. The
orchestra surges in great waves of tone, now
dying into a ripple, now heaving and swelling,
and at last sinking into calm.

ACT I. A sailor is singing at the masthead,
but Isolde, lying face downwards on some
cushions, in the pavilion which has been erected
for her, pays no heed. Her maid, Brangane,
looks through the curtains, and announces that
they near the shore. Isolde rises in fury, for,
throughout the voyage, Tristan, the knight who
takes her to be the bride of King Marke, has
refused to come to her. Up surges the wild
music, and Isolde gives vent to her passion,
which increases with the storm which has
suddenly come upon the vessel ; she cries for
air, and Brangane opens the curtains. Tristan
stands among the sailors, gazing out to sea,
while Kurwenal, his squire, reclines at his feet.
The scene recalls memories, for Tristan had
slain her lover, Morold, but being wounded his

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

friends had carried him to her, for she was
magician as well as princess. His broken
sword had fitted the piece which she had found
in Morold's wound, and it was her intention to
slay him. But Tristan's eyes betrayed his
passion for her, and she had healed him. This
unknown knight had now been sent to bring
her as bride to his king. She hates his resolute
coldness, and remembers Morold. She bids
Brangane prepare the Draught of Death.
Then she summons Tristan. The orchestra
dwells on the scene till the hero approaches,
when it heralds him with a majestic theme,
which is allied to him throughout the drama.
For a moment they stand and gaze, but, when
Tristan hears the nature of her thoughts, he
hands her his unsheathed sword and confronts
Isolde. This she refuses, for another idea has
entered her mind. The draught is handed to
him and for a while they gaze at each other,
while the music rises like a dirge. He pledges
her in the deadly cup, and drinks, but Isolde
snatches the half-drained potion, and quaffs it
with passionate recklessness. The music rises
like incense to the memory of these lovers,
who have drunk of forgetfulness, till the strings
commence a tremulous theme, which is taken
up by the whole orchestra. This is not Death.

144

Photo by D. McNeill, Stratford-upon-Avon

MR. OTHO STUART AS BRUTUS

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

Isolde opens her arms and approaches Tristan,
who, step by step, responds. Brangane has
mixed a potion of Love, not Death. Free will
is gone. Controlled by outer forces they rush
into each other's arms, and echo in word,
gesture, and embrace all that the wild pulses
of the orchestra portray.

The ship is in port, and the maids of King
Marke robe Isolde in her bridal dress, as soon
as Kurwenal has dragged Tristan away.

ACT II. The introduction gives a musical
picture of the lovers' unrest, now that they are
lit for conflagration. The curtain parts and
shows the doorway of King Marke's Castle,
while stretched before us is a woodland scene,
with moonlight filtering through the trees and
shimmering on the stream, and the air is filled
with music more lovely than all the praises of
poet or painter, the very growth of the beauty
revealed. The sounds of hunting are intro-
duced, and we can follow its course through
the mingling of these sounds with the other
music. The whole scene is voiceless till Isolde
and Brangane come forward. Isolde bids the
latter extinguish the torch that blazes in the
doorway, and so bid Tristan come. Brangane
fears treachery, so Isolde -herself takes down
the light. Then, standing in the moonlight,

H5 K

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

with the intermittent sound of hunting coming
to her ears, she beckons to her lover. He
comes, and the music is filled with strange
magic. It rises and falls, eddies, sparkles,
grows overcast with portent as Love holds
them in each other's arms. They sing of
Night and oblivion as a land of rest, a dark
casket jewelled with stars beyond the chain of
sense or circumstance. In ecstasy they pass
the hours till Dawn and hard reality strike
them cold. And dolorous sounds come from
the orchestra in place of the magic which has
fled.

ACT III. At the end we have tragedy in all
its fulness. Fever burns Tristan's last embers.
Delirium preys upon him. With feverish
strength he pushes the stalwart squire away
and rises in his bed. " The ship! the ship!"
With frenzy he awaits Kurwenal's report.
Not yet in sight ! At last when the deli-
rium, the burning hope, the blasting despair,
have risen to their height, the shepherd pipes
a merry tune. Kurwenal rushes to the emi-
nence, descends with tears of joy : the ship is
in sight. Tristan is suspicious. Is Kurwenal
false too? In weakness he subsides, but rises
again with madness upon him, for he has had
to bear the full tide of hurrlan sorrow and

146

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

passion, and the meridian of pain ; and the
tired, burning man gives full vent to his
emotion, the orchestra tossing its tone billows
in harmony with the waves of delirium. He
tears off his bandages and staggers from his
couch, for he has heard Isolde's approach, and
bids his blood flow merrily. She enters in
time to support him as he falls. He has just
time to breathe her name, which he does to
the same phrase as in the first Act, and sinks
lifeless, she helpless with grief beside him.
Then another ship arrives. Brangane has
admitted her guilt, and King Marke arrives
to pardon them. But Kurwenal has observed
Melot among the soldiers, offers a stout re-
sistance, and is slain, and with his last ounce
of strength the faithful fellow drags himself to
the body of his master. King Marke blesses
them in noble, kingly phrases, while Brangane
weeps. Then rises Isolde from the corses of
Tristan and Kurwenal, like a sleepwalker
gazing on untold treasure. She sings of a
life beyond where she and Tristan speed
through space together to some unknown land.
The vibrant orchestra shows that beyond the
quiet voice there is great exaltation. Her face
is lit up as she glorifies the dead, and sees in
death a great crescendo, a rainbow bridge

147

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

from here to Walhall. Slowly she bends and
sinks lifeless upon her lover. For in her song
has her soul gone out. So must it have been,
as always in life, which demands of the great
ones their all before they pass unfettered into
the Land of Night. Of the miser death takes
toll of his millions, of the lover his love, before
they pass out alone or with a comrade.

It is said that the lovers were buried to-
gether, and that an ivy plant and a vine grew
up over their tomb, and mingled together so
that no man could part them, for so it was
with them in life, and so in death.

So much for an outward expression of the
work, but what of the feelings it engenders ?

Would that all lovers newly plighted, or on
their wedding day, could come under the spell !
I cannot think of a phase of love which is not
touched in this living dream.

Here we are not faced by " realism " or
" romanticism," but we see the romance of
reality.

And what is this Love ?

It is not aspiration towards a freer life
in a life beyond, which is a part of Divine
Love. It is not a longing for human beauty,
which is of the good earth. But it is born of
these things. It is a realisation that man is

148

WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

twofold, and that the union of the sexes, like
the reconciliation of man to God, is a primal
thing. Only where these two things are first
in the consciousness of men is it possible to
get forward to the freedom and the beauty we
long for. When every sense is purified by
spirit, when the turmoil of present-day strife
has fled, man will realise that each physical
sense has its spiritual counterpart, that this
Hellenic view of love will lead us, not to
savagery, but to the simple strength of ele-
mental things.

Love then, stripped of all disguise of custom
or warped instincts, is life's supreme end. It
is a manifestation of the race spirit in this
world of ours, in which body and soul seek
kinship. And if this drama of Wagner is the
supreme exposition of love, if in Shakespeare
we find the pageants of national history, the
dramas of fate and ambition, and the comedies
of wit and beauty, but two sides remain to
focus as it were a world's spiritual essence
within the four walls of a theatre. These
are :

(a) The relation of mankind to a Saviour.

(&) A contemporary drama, dealing with
such paramount forces of our own day as are
not included.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

The latter I leave to the next chapter, and
will deal here with " Parsifal."

For, while regarding " Tannhatiser " as a
work that deserves complete production in a
British theatre, "Tristan" and " Parsifal"
alone are imperatively Indo-European and
akin to our race in the most vital sense.

" Parsifal " is more akin than any existing
work to the Mystery Play. The Passion Play
atOberammergau is a narrative, an illustration.
" Parsifal" is a religious ceremony, in which
the ideas of the East blend with Western con-
ceptions.

Wagner's German Federalism expressed
itself in the "Ring" cycle, his peculiarly
German folk-spirit in the pageantry of " Die
Meistersinger " the German " Merry Wives
of Windsor."

But in " Parsifal " he reveals a consciousness
of kinship with the Indian side of our nature.
Not only was the work to be Christian in
idea, but a vision of Indian wisdom.

If we compare the Jewish hot-blood of
" Salome " with the restraint of Wagner's last
work, my meaning becomes clear.

Life is not all love and death, but the re-
demption must find its place in our thoughts.

The legend upon which the work is based
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WAGNER AND SHAKESPEARE

came from the East to France, thence to
Germany, where it became the subject of
Wolfram von Eschenbach's great poem, and
to Britain, as the legend of Peredur, the son
of Evrawc (Mabinogion).

Parsifal is the pure and simple youth who
brings salvation through sympathy. Amfortas,
the Grail King, has been false to his race, the
Grail worship no longer is a joy, but is full of
the pain of inconsistency.

There is nothing in " Parsifal " to suggest
that asceticism is an ideal in itself. It was
decadence and impurity which brought to
King Amfortas the wound that never would
heal.

The story, roughly and with differences, re-
minds one of that of Christ Himself, and the
symbolic significance of the work is inspired
by the Messianic idea. For this reason it is,
from the Christian and Anglo-Celtic points of
view, the simplest of dramas, and one of the
most necessary.

As we have seen, there is nothing of Judaic
faith in the work. " Parsifal" sprang from the
East, and has reappeared wherever the Indo-
European race has spread. Wagner's version
is simply a blending of essentials in the form
of a ceremony.

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

The performance of such a work as an
entertainment would be an outrage.

At Stratford it would be a solemn aftermath
of a season traversing our history, our nature
and comic traits, our love and faith.

152

VII

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

THE Stratford Movement grew out of Shake-
speare, who was as English as the Avon,
though as universal as the water which is
the genius of rivers everywhere. The religi-
ous nature of the drama has been shown to
us by the Greeks, and the nationalism of the
Teutonic people stands out in the person and
art of Richard Wagner.

So far the Memorial Theatre has opened
its doors to the Orestean trilogy.

And the Governors have incorporated folk-
dancing in their broad and human scheme.
So that there is nothing incongruous in dealing
briefly with the most popular and essentially
national of all art forms, that of Choral Song.

It is the modernity, and not the medievalism
of Shakespeare, that has made the Festival
possible.

But the modern stage having drifted away
from normal life and the expression of living
thought, the creative impulse has found

153

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

other outlets. Instead of Wagner we have
Elgar: instead of " Parsifal" we have "The
Dream of Gerontius." Instead of the rich
music-drama of Germany, or the delicate
fantasy of France, we have our legacy of
Folk Song.

Unhappily our glorious choral music, in
which alone this country excels, is confined
to musical circles, choral societies, and concert-
rooms. But seeing that the expression of
communal feeling lies at the root of the
movement, the time is growing ripe for the
introduction of choral art into the Festival
Scheme.

As this book is not only a record of things
done, but a broad statement of the various
tendencies of folk art, I will try to show what
is the actual condition of choral England, and
how choral art stands or might stand towards
the general idea of Stratford.

The spoken drama and choral song both
have their roots in the folk ; they are branches
of the same tree, balancing and giving pro-
portion. In Shakespeare himself music and
speech were as one, and his plays full of
snatches of song natural to an age wherein
music was a language to men who could
barely write their names. To this day much

154

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

music lingers among those to whom book-
learning has not come.

Men like Sir Charles Stanford, Messrs.
Frank Kidson, Cecil Sharp, M'llwaine, John
Graham, and Percy Grainger, and Miss Lucy
Broadwood have rescued and published many
folk-songs, bringing them from oblivion only
just in time.

Though they have been brought from the
country inn and from the fields, modern com-
posers have not as yet been dominated or
drenched with the power and purity of them.
They are wayside flowers rather than humanity's
daily food. And that is why critics like Mr.
Newman laugh at the idea of national choral
art, based upon the past.

Miss Neal and the Esperance Club have
done a great work, while Sir Charles Stanford
has encouraged the study of folk-song at the
Royal College of Music. Mr. Sharp, too, con-
trols a school, and has edited several volumes.

But only recently has folk-song begun its
successful campaign at the great musical festi-
vals, linking them up with the outworn oratorio
form.

To properly appreciate this point it is neces-
sary to give a picture of musical England, and
to invest it with personality, remembering that

155 '

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

not England alone, but the Colonies, and above
all the Dominion of Canada, are progressing on
these lines.

With regard to the Musical Festivals of this
country a few words must be said.

If we compare their nature with that of
the Shakespeare Festival three things are
lacking :

(a) A common aim centring around a living
idea, and definite policy.

(6) Conditions of health and open air.

(c) A popular or national tendency.

These are evils which cannot be denied.

Their virtues are :

(a) At the Three Choir Festivals (Hereford,
Gloucester, and Worcester) a certain religious
tradition informs them, giving life and a reason
for existence.

(b) Occasionally a City Festival (Leeds, New-
castle, or Birmingham) introduces a work of
national or popular interest, as will be seen.

The first cause of the trouble is irreparable.
The modern city is no place for joy and great
endeavour, though it might become so if the
artistic life of the city were born anew.

Alone among rural festivals is that at Hov-
ingham. It is a country organisation, founded
in 1886 by a parson, and aided by the squire

'56

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

two types that do not suggest democratic feel-
ing to those who look narrowly at life. The
quality of the works done at this village is not
inferior to that at any of the larger ones. At
present the organisation remains, but the work
is in abeyance.

Leeds, Birmingham, and Cardiff also have
had to face a decline in support. This is not
surprising in view of the high prices, which
make what are ostensibly popular festivals
into society gatherings. True, they are held
at different cities, but the audience is the same.
Seldom do they represent either the taste or
feeling of their locality. A big reputation or
special aptitude at wire-pulling are qualities
which too often determine the production of
works. Seldom does a regard either for the
peculiar merits of a work, or even the tendency
of popular desire, weigh in the balance. A sort
of hopeless routine maintains some of them in
existence, yet they are a power, and have done
much to set a standard for the numerous healthy
choral societies which alone keep art alive in
many a town. Yet music, the theatre, the
popular " music-hall" are separate things de-
signed to meet existing demands, and depen-
dent upon the conditions to which unhappily
they have fallen a prey.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

And if you doubt this go to a Musical Festival
Committee, or a theatre, and talk to the or-
ganisers about Art and Beauty, and hear their
answers from them rather than from me.

It is more fruitful to turn for a few minutes
to the work achieved by composers in spite
of these conditions. For those composers who
have survived the obstacles which custom and
narrowness of outlook have thrust before them
are full of the spirit of the old bards. We
have in fact a case of the survival of the fittest.
The fact that they have been compelled to
write for Choral Festivals and Societies has
led to an amazing development of choral sing-
ing, especially in Yorkshire and Wales. When
a man is writing for a fashionable opera-house
or for the commercial theatre, he may indulge
in many a folly. But he whose work is to be
sung by and to the people must purge himself
of all dross.

For music is the communal, the brotherly Art.
Choral and dramatic compositions blend the
emotions of a multitude, and express the ideas of
the composer. One need not be a critic or an
expert to enjoy the great works of our own
day, for it is the business of the bard to make
himself clear, and the only composers to be
mentioned in this study are those who have

158

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

something in common with the normal feelings
of human beings.

The most typical English composer is Sir
Hubert Parry. His music is that of the old
school, the kind of men who believe in God and
do not despise good port. No one is more
sound spiritually, and in few works is there a
nobler conception of Life and Death than in his
choral poem "Beyond these Voices there is
Peace," while his " Pied Piper of Hamelin" is
a work of delightful humour. Stratford, too,
has " A Piper " of its own, piping the pipe of
peace through all the narrow Hamelins of
England, wakening into life the true folk-spirit
of our real selves. And many a work of Choral
England is so in harmony with the spirit of
the movement as to make these notes worth
writing.

The obvious leader of the modern British
school is Sir Edward Elgar. The undiscrimi-
nating eulogy of those who see in him Alpha
and Omega, cannot blind us to the fact that
Elgar is a man who has beaten down academic
tradition, and put the oratorio in touch with the
people.

And it is this popular touch which alone is
of any importance in Art. For here, under
natural conditions, popularity loses its old

159

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

significance. No longer is the word " popular "
a gibe, standing in the handcuffs of inverted
commas, but signifying the approval of a people
who know how to enjoy.

The technique of Elgar is very wonderful.
He learnt much from Wagner, and also from
Richard Strauss. Indeed, he owes to Strauss
the second hearing, and consequent success, of
his great work, " The Dream of Gerontius."
The Birmingham Festival production was a
failure. Elgar himself is not one of those men
to become popular in a moment. But the
work was given at the Lower Rhine Festival,
Dtisseldorf, 1902, and Strauss made a speech
which caused musical England to be thoroughly
ashamed of itself, and gave Elgar his real
opportunity.

Those who have neither heard nor read the
work will have gathered that it deals with
Death, and that the music is difficult to sing
and to understand. At the end of a hard day's
work this is so. I first heard it under those
conditions, and had to travel to and fro over
sixty miles. Every throb of the great poem
beats within me yet. Yet how much better
would it be in the twilight of golden holiday,
with peace upon the river, and silence in the
theatre of our dreams.

1 60

Photo by Ellis & H'alery

MR. ARTHUR BOURCHIER AS SHYLOCK AND MISS VIOLET
VANBRUGH AS PORTIA

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

Nor can those of us who regard national art
as a vital thing ignore " Caractacus," produced
at the Leeds Festival of 1904. It is great be-
cause it deals with one of our national heroes,
and the music is that of a strong man, who
burns with faith, in whose own soul conflict
between Christianity and Paganism has been
fought, and whose art is the soul's battle-ground.
That is why the great, thundering choruses of
" Caractacus " go straight home. And it is
because " King Olaf " lacks this quality that it
is merely a picturesque piece of music.

Again, Elgar is a Catholic, a man who
believed in Gordon, and who, like the hero of
Khartum, combines a noble faith with good
fighting qualities. Gordon's favourite poem
was Cardinal Newman's (< Dream of Gerontius,"
the wonderful vision that tells of the soul of a
man, seemingly dead, arriving before the throne
of the great King in judgment. Gordon died
with that poem in his pocket. Elgar lived,
and will live for ever as composer, because he
expressed in music the atmosphere of the poem,
and is able to plunge a chorus, an orchestra,
and an audience into a sublime state of sub-
conscious actuality. And when Elgar writes
" Pomp and Circumstance " military marches,
or sets to music drawing-room songs, it is all

161 L

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

very well, and when he composes a great
symphony or a new violin concerto it is a
festive day for musical people. But it is as
the bard of Caractacus and as the priest of
Gerontius that he will live.

Elgar too has been exercised as to the future
of music as a general rather than a specialised
art. His proposal, amplified a little by me
for purposes of illustration, is something like
this :

Let the money that is wasted on stupid
certificates and scholarships be spent in pro-
viding concert-halls. Let those concert-halls
be fitted with a proscenium, so that, in case of
need, musico-dramatic works can be performed.
The English temperament prefers choral to
purely orchestral or operatic work ; therefore,
these public " music-halls " must not be mere
theatres. But let them be so arranged that
the following types of work may be pro-
duced :

(a) Choral works, varying from " Gerontius "
to " Hiawatha," the soloists wearing simple
gowns rather than the costume of the modern
dance or dinner party.

(3) Cantatas like Handel's " L'Allegro."

(c) Wagner's dramas and Greek plays with
music, also British music-drama, beginning

162

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

with Purcell, produced as upon the ordinary
stage, only better.

If this is at all his idea, Sir Edward has
given voice to a general feeling, by no means
out of harmony with Stratford.

For one of the features of London music in
1910 was Madame Marie Brema's produc-
tion of Purcell's "Orpheus" and Handel's
" L' Allegro."

Now the " Allegro," which is, of course,
a setting of Milton's poem (combined with
alternating passages from " Penseroso "), is full
of scenic suggestion and beauty, though pro-
duced hitherto as a mere " cantata." Madame
Brema has boldly staged it, and never, save at
Bayreuth, have I seen a work more satisfying.
The absence of the stale operatic lust and
nonsense, instead of causing a lack of interest,
creates a natural and human atmosphere un-
usual in the theatre. Handel no more seems
dull, nor Milton's muse remote, because the
joy of rustic dance alternates with spiritual
beauty in the stage picture. It is English to
the core, a veritable Folk Festival.

Too long has choral England left a gap
between oratorio and opera. Both are un-
natural. Elijah in evening dress is as absurd
a spectacle as the conspirators in " Rigoletto,"

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

who roar at one another " Let us be silent."
Nothing could be more natural than to see
Milton's " pensive nun" and his jolly English
dancers realise upon the stage the simple
beauty of the work. Truly, one may say
" Hence, loathed melancholy."

And in Gluck's " Orpheus" this was even
more the case. The legend of Orpheus deals
with the idea of Music as a power on earth, in
heaven, and in the dismal cave where dwell
the Furies, all the untamed bestialities of life.
Angrily they threaten Orpheus, who gradually
quells their torment and sings them back to
human feeling again. Never shall I forget
that scene, wherein a tortuous forest of writhing
limbs dumbly proclaimed bodily unrest, while
the air was full of the torment of souls in
sound. And this legend of Orpheus has much
akin to the tales of Oisin, the Irish hero, sung
by Mr. Yeats.

I mention this Greek play, partly because
the union of Greek feeling in the art of our
people tends to emphasise the Greek elements
of Christianity. Recent research confirms the
belief that Christ Himself spoke Greek, and
therefore is by no means to be considered as
Judaistic. St. Paul frankly proclaimed himself
as a citizen of the Roman Imperium, while his

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CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

culture was Greek, his teaching, too, being full
of Hellenic ideas. This question is important
to us as a race, for the belief that we are
essentially Jewish in religion, basing our con-
ceptions upon Jewish tradition, prevents a full
value being given to our own national customs
and natural ideals in art and life. But another
practical object in referring to Madame Brema's
experiment. In his book on " Musical England"
(p. 112), Mr. W. G. Galloway pleads for a
broader policy on the part of Musical Festivals.
He would have them include in their pro-
grammes both dramatic works and so-called
oratorios and choral poems. Bristol has gone
so far as to perform Wagnerian drama without
scenery, but no further response has come or
is to be expected.

The unhappy divorce between music and
drama is seen in yet another way, exempli-
fied by the mediaeval play " Everyman," the
dramatic version of which has been produced
by Mr. Poel and others. This was the subject
of Dr. Walford Davies' first great choral work
(Leeds Festival, 1904), and both in its atmos-
phere and simple strength is one of the greatest
works written by a Briton.

Here is a clear case of power lost by
separated effort. We have an oratorio and

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a spoken play instead of a united effort such
as would have resulted had the various arts
had common centres and a unified public.

If Stratford should encourage choral work,
and meet with encouragement to do so, our
Musical Festivals themselves would gather
much useful knowledge by the experiment,
which they could develop in their own cities.

Having seen what the Festivals have done
for music, and in an oblique and obscure way
for drama (without scenery), let us glance at
the fate of poetry amid all this specialisation.

Apart from the old oratorio, which is simply
drama marred in the making, the modern com-
poser can do two things which the dramatist
cannot attempt, and which supplements the
drama on the one side as does dancing on
the other :

(a) The setting of narrative poems for
chorus and orchestra.

(6) The setting of poems to expressive
music.

In these arts, especially in the latter, Elgar,
Bantock, Stanford, and Walford Davies excel.

Walford Davies, for instance, has more of
the poet about him than Elgar, as the choice
of Blake's " Songs of Innocence" and Herrick's
" Noble Numbers" indicates.

1 66

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

Stanford excels as an arranger of folk-song,
with the brogue peculiar to his native Ireland.

People do not read poetry nowadays. They
shrink from the imaginative effort. And, in
view of the beauty of our poems, it is a
fortunate thing that our composers are good
readers of poetry. Granville Bantock's study
is full of poems. " The Time Spirit" and
" Sea Wanderers," by Helen Bantock, are the
very life of the choral works which her husband
has developed from them. There is nothing
of the minor poet about her : she is capable of
restraint, of "mood," which are the foundation
of choral or dramatic poetry. And these works,
especially the latter, which was first performed
at Leeds Festival (1907), enable thousands of
people to hear poetry, not merely to sit at
home and read it.

Then again his "Sappho Songs ;; (for con-
tralto) are among the loveliest of their kind.
Founded upon fragments of Sappho's poems,
translated by H. T. Wharton, Granville Ban-
tock has made them the medium of a series
of mood pictures, showing the varying colours
of sexual passion. They are pure, noble utter-
ances, varying from brooding reminiscence, as
in " I loved thee, Atthis, long ago," through
the beautiful sorrow of the "Lament for

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Adonis," to the victorious and joyful rhapsody
of the lover who finds a mate.

But the wider public regards Bantock as the
creator of the choral and orchestral setting of
Fitzgerald's " Omar Khayydm." The value of
this work can never be known until it has been
set upon the stage, each of its three parts an
Act, in a garden scene of languorous afternoon.
The composer wisely has divided the quatrains
dramatically between the Poet, the Beloved,
and the Philosopher, leaving the descriptive
parts to the chorus. Under Stratford condi-
tions a work of this kind, though not a play
in the ordinary sense, would provide us with
a delightful " static drama/' Concert condi-
tions are most unsatisfactory with such a work.

The restful atmosphere of the garden, and
the special qualities of the philosophy have
never been fully understood. No less a
nationalist than Professor Geddes has empha-
sised the value of Omar to the Western mind.
For it must never be forgotten that we are of
Aryan stock, that the Indo-European race links
East and West.

If our politicians were more alive to that
the race difficulties in India would dwindle to
nothing.

Our mixture with the Semites, noble though
168

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

the Jews be among races, has blinded us to
our common heritage, along with Eastern
peoples, to be found in Eastern legend and
thought. But until, as a race, we are more
self-conscious, we cannot come back to the
Eastern home of Old Father Wisdom.

Our own immediate forbears claim us through
the art which is within our immediate grasp, the
song of the Anglo-Celts.

Since Purcell, 1690, with his "Dido and
yEneas " and " King Arthur/' we have had no
true national style. Music has been too much
a matter of abstract culture, too little a means
of expressing popular feeling. Yet in these
days, with life so complex, with large orchestras
and choral societies everywhere ; with a world
so full of joy and sorrow ; in the midst of
political change, with the air tremulous with
national anxieties ; surely the time has come
for the bard to lead national feeling, and to
bring courage and hope into the people's life.
The great public is tired of lust, horror, and
stupidity on the operatic stage. Nor does it
desire dull, trite, academic twistings of the
Scriptures in the choral works of uninspired
professors.

In the old times folk-song was the very life
of the -country, the vocal expression of Merrie

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

England, in the days of the dance and the
maypole. Therefore the modern composer is
right in turning again to the popular folk-song.
To bring the folk-song from the public-house
of the countryside into the public hall of the
Choral Society is a sound basis for a national
art. By this I do not mean that any musician
who writes an elaborate and windy orchestral
piece, based upon tunes stolen from the library
of a collector of folk-music, is saving his
country.

When Rutland Boughton produced his
" Choral Variations on English Folk Songs"
at the Leeds Festival (1907), I had never
heard of him. And it was through Mr. Ban-
tock's cordial praise that I came into touch
with his ideas, and into contact with his work
to bring music into the hospitals, the prisons,
and the workhouses, as well as the theatre.

Therefore one may take him seriously when
he sets folk-songs for choruses, avowedly for
the purpose of bringing people together in a
brotherly way, through the Arts.

His method of setting works for unaccom-
panied chorus is on the same free, melodic
lines as Elgar's orchestral writing.

After the success of the Leeds folk-songs
the Birmingham Festival of 1909 accepted his

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CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

setting of Edward Carpenter's poem, "A Song
at Midnight." This is quite as rhythmical as
the songs, but set for full orchestra and chorus.
And it is a musical version of a poem treating
directly of the conditions of modern life. It
deals in a human way with the sweated needle-
woman, using up her last bit of candle ; with
the agonies of the sick, with the remorse of
evil-doers ; with the clangour of bells tolling
the hours of darkness away, ringing the knell
of a night of social horror. But this Rembrandt-
like composition is lit with hope. The music
and the voices of singers proclaim the advance
of tramping millions, marching through the
night with the joyful hope of dawn.

" These are they who dream the impossible
dream/' is the burden of this great canticle of
social regeneration.

Certain features of this led to the conception
of a new dramatic form, Choral Drama, in
which the idea of the Greek chorus is united
with the orchestra. This of course clears
away the difficulty that besets lyrical drama.

The chorus represents the people, and stands
as it were between the audience and the prin-
cipal characters, combining the descriptive
power of massed voices with the individual
nature of the legendary heroes.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Now I believe that when our choral forces
join with the dramatic in visualising and
vocalising the great sagas of our people, a
truly Shakespearean development will have
stepped in.

While the composers whom I have men-
tioned are in my opinion typical of this popular
tendency, there are many others whom I have
included in other studies, but of whom space
forbids mention here.

For instance, Dr. Vaughan Williams, in his
Sea Symphony, no less than in folk-song
variations, is a power for good.

Francis Toye in the Boxford Masque, and
men who, like Mr. Shann at Bury St. Edmunds,
organise village masques or pageants, are
typical of others who all over the country are
stirring the embers and kindling the fires of
national consciousness anew.

But the difficulties, indeed the apathy with
which my inquiries have been met, emphasise
the need for the centralising of all these forces
and the keeping of a central record.

So far the isolated worker in the water-tight
compartments of specialised Arts has had no
means of conferring and working with his
fellows.

Now I do not suggest that the Shakespeare
172

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

Memorial Festival should become a choral
meeting. But I believe that, by incorporating
in the scheme representative works such as I
have outlined, new blood and new energy would
be drawn into the Movement. The Choral
North would come to the Avon banks, and
their picked festival choruses could speak to
our hearts in a language that we understand.
And they in turn would form the audience for
alternating Shakespearean and Greek dramatic
works, and the sedentary art of choral singing
would find interplay perhaps in Folk Dancing,
or at least in witnessing the dancing in the
open air.

Instead of all working separately with their
own publics and methods they would regard
Stratford as a clearing-house of English Art,
and of Art more than English.

For Canada above all cousin states has taken
song for her Dominion. Dr. Harris with his
Canadian chorus, with his frankly national
programmes, could draw tighter those bonds
of love that are forged by the Song God. The
music of Macdowell, America's greatest com-
poser, could unite with that of Elgar in a new
way.

Australia, rich in singers and poets ; New
Zealand, truly a land of zeal, would be there.

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Indeed, from the Seven Seas would come the
tribes to be sealed at Stratford.

That unity of race which has marked out
Judaism among the nations, would set the
Anglo-Celtic peoples, the Indo-European race
at common cause.

And I would have the reader remember
that, in the past, the Dane, the Norman, and
the Teuton have come into our midst as a
result of feud and of battle. But I believe
that the fusion of the future will be not "of
garments rolled in blood," but with the power
of song, and by the sword of the spirit. And,
while the politician may hope to bind with a
bond metallic, the artist looks to the heart-
strings.

Wherever this book wanders, from the very
heart of England's Stratford goes the race-
spirit, which is Love to you. Nor can .you
escape it. If the bloodhound's scent be strong,
how much stronger the kinship that comes
down the ages.

And as you read it, especially Indians, who
do not know the kinship between our Arthurian
cycle with your Ramayana, remember before
the cosmopolitan spirit has widened the breach.

Nationalism not only reaches to the heart of
India, and finds a homeland on every shore of

CHORAL ART AND THE THEATRE

the Seven Seas, but goes deep down into the
past, to the first gleaming hopes of the race
before we became tribes, before we began to
forget each other as do brothers who have lived
long in distant lands.

The Movement has reached a stage which
demands development.

Imperial Federation is in the air, yet never
was there a time when Little England was so
essentially the homeland of a great people.

Municipal reform expresses itself through
the universities, by means of architectural
training and the art of civic design, com-
plemented with the efforts of garden cities
and town-planning schemes.

Beauty is becoming a part of our practical
politics, as in "the spacious days of great
Elizabeth," a phrase no longer hackneyed if
we care to give it a meaning.

The time has come to speak out : to say
to the singers and players of England, " The
Round Table is spread " ; to the dramatists,
"The Sword of Power that was Shakespeare's
is set in the stone four-square. Let him that
is king among you draw it forth ! " to the
educationists, " Behold in Stratford all that
England can do in the way of Art. Let the
children see and hear, that, when they be

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

grown-up, they may be an understanding
people, with joy and beauty in their hearts,
and with love for us " ; to the sages of- Eng-
land, "Come here for your councils''; and to
the workmen, " Here is a place where men
have laboured for your joy. Rest from your
toil beholding theirs."

176

Photo by C. Histed

MR. OSCAR ASCHE AS OTHELLO

VIII

THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

ART can be practical without precept. A coal-
scuttle well wrought in bronze may be as useful
as a zinc tub without in any way pointing a
moral or otherwise destroying its beauty.

And if we take all the Arts separately they
have their uses.

The architect who built a house that could
not be inhabited would stand in the same
relation to his art as the dramatist who pro-
duced a work which the common mind could
not comprehend.

Beauty is the first principle of Art, but fitness
for its purpose is a postulate without which we
could not go far.

In the earlier part of this book we have
dealt with the physical arts of Song and Dance
developing into the communal Art of Drama.

And in comparing various phases and forms
we have seen that a social quality therein
determined their interest both for us and for
those taking part in them.

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

Architecture is the body of communal art, as
is drama its soul.

Dramatic creation gives the conception of
beauty, awakens the emotions, and guides us
through all the regions of passion and peace.

Architecture is able to build a home for the
lover ; a workshop for the worker ; a temple
for the worshipper ; and a theatre for the
dreams of a community.

Therefore it seems to me that in some way
Stratford-upon-Avon should, by means of Con-
gresses or Exhibitions, focus at her national
fount this dramaturgy in stone upon which the
outward form of our future must depend. This
seems the more desirable seeing that the place
of the theatre in modern civic life is not
understood.

If Stratford-upon-Avon is to be more than a
dramatic Spa we must also evolve something
in the way of a University of the Arts, where
in the most pleasurable way ideas may be
gathered of the kind of city which the future
holds for us.

Shakespeare certainly was no sociologist.
But it was not without an object that he gave
us " The Tempest " with its types of Prospero,
Caliban, Trinculo, and Gonzalo. The forces
at work in our midst are Idealism, Animalism

THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

(or Sin), and Flabbyism, the half-baked slippery
thing which is neither in earnest nor entirely
gross.

In the world to-day we have a great many
Calibans; the Trinculos and Stephanos abound;
while Prosperos are few.

Surely Shakespeare himself was Prospero,
and in his other characters was consciously
symbolising the qualities of his own day.
There is no sign of allegory in " The Tempest,"
but the grouping of characters : Ferdinand and
Miranda, the primal pair of a period ; Caliban
making the air reek with his grossness while
Ariel tunes it to perfumed loveliness ; Gonzalo,
who knows all about it, and the drinkers who
do not care a button : these are social types,
not personal characters, such as Falstaff, nor
dramatisations of Fate, Passion, or Perversity.

But they are no more the results of conscious
and deliberate artifice than was Wagner's
" Tristan " or Mr. John Galsworthy's " Justice,"
which caused Mr. Winston Churchill, then
Home Secretary, to alter the prison code.
Mr. Galsworthy, who, with Masefield and
others, is of modern dramatists the most
Shakespearean, takes such subjects as " Strife "
or " Justice/' and gives you the ramifications of
the central passion, as it flows red through the

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

veins of living man. He does not take sides,
but lets such questions as Capital versus Labour
and the prison question provide the dramatic
interest of his plays.

And I take Galsworthy as a type because
he never lays down the law. He is neither a
preacher who has mistaken his profession nor
an aimless aesthete wasting his own time and
ours. He has proved that the life of our own
day may be dramatic.

Masefield, too, in his " Pompey the Great/ 1
has succeeded in writing a Roman play, which
is topical to-day. The problems of Rome and
the humanities of Romans are interesting to
us in so far as they were true to their time.
There is no cold classicalism about it ; the
writing is rhythmic without formality ; and the
use of the sailor's chanty in the great concluding
scene reminds one not only that John Mase-
field has been a sailor and is a poet, but that
the Greek Chorus can be reborn to us in many
forms and with perfect results. The historical
drama did not die with Shakespeare, and
politics to-day differ only from those of ancient
Rome in scene and setting.

In treating such a question as the practicality
of Art there is a danger of offending both ( sides.
If one say that the drama is a pleasurable

i So

THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

interest, not a method of teaching, the earnest
man is disappointed. And when one turns to
the dissolute dabblers who have spoiled the
contemporary stage, they meet one with the
cry, " Drama is an amusement, not a source
of education."

What is the truth ?

The plain facts are these :

(a) The habitual amusement of our deformed
and defiled cities no longer is pleasurable to
normal people ; nor would it have found favour
in any robust or intellectual age.

(&) But, along with town-planning and hous-
ing reform, folk-dancing and the awaking
patriotism of the race, new conditions of life
are coming into being, and Pleasure and Art
once more are coming together.

That town - planning, the Shakespearean
drama, folk-art, and the race-spirit are not
separate subjects, but one and indivisible ; and
that the Arts differ only in method, but all are
meant to express the health and joy of man,
is no isolated opinion.

Professor Geddes, both in his writings and
lectures, in his work for the Dunfermline civic
experiments, and in his exhibits at the Out-
look Tower, Edinburgh, was among the first
to co-ordinate these various phases into one

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

subject. And Mr. Brassington, the Memorial
Librarian, is a strong advocate of a University
of the Arts. 1

If the reader should be sceptical as to a new
order of civic life a few historical facts would
not come amiss.

I repeat that the drama must not preach
regeneration, but itself must be regenerate as
the expression and the inspiration of practical
effort. Hence the relationship to town-plan-
ning. In 1902 the villages of Letchworth,
Norton, and Willian contained about 700
inhabitants. A company was formed to take
over the estate and to realise the ideas of a
city which Mr. Ebenezer Howard had set out
in his " Garden Cities of To-morrow." His
scheme was, briefly, as follows :

(a) To erect good houses and cottages, each
with its plot of land.

(&) To encourage manufactories, which were
to be restricted to a certain area, separate from
the residential part.

(c) To bind the whole together in a unified
and organic way by an agricultural belt.

1 These I mention, among others, to disclaim originality
in the matter. And Mr. Benson, of whom I cannot speak
freely in this volume, comprehends this essential unity of
life. R. R. B.

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THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

This plan was so worked out that over-
crowding became impossible, and, when the
population has grown to about 30,000, de-
velopment will cease.

By the end of 1910 about 7500 inhabitants
were established there with more than twenty
factories of various kinds, including printing
works, a tapestry guild, and the Iceni pottery.
Nor was this all.

Being its own landlord the Company could
enforce a decent regard for health and beauty.

The inhabitants, many of them attracted to
the place as a possible field for social and artistic
experiment, set great store by the drama.

Not only does their Dramatic Society produce
plays of the better kind, but each year a local
pantomime, in the form of a satire upon their
own social experiment, has enlivened the place.
Letchworth Garden City is a standing proof that
the city as we know it is not an ordinance of
Providence, but a temporary phase, born of
accident and misdirected energy. Letchworth
provides an example of a new, organic com-
munity, springing up, not from accident, but as
the result of a preconceived plan.

At Knebworth Lord Lytton is developing
a garden city on similar lines, while garden
suburbs are growing up all over the country.

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

At Bournville and Port Sunlight large manu-
facturers have grouped similar communities
around their works, thus bringing healthy con-
ditions within the means of their employees.

I admit that these experiments are social and
architectural rather than dramatic.

But, with a well-ordered society, public taste
will awaken to the finer and more delightful
aspects of life.

Of course, being modern and without any
central tradition and guide, these new cities are
not destined to be centres of national gather-
ings, stimulating though they certainly are.
And this is where practical and ideal unite.

Unless I am much mistaken civic design,
including agricultural and artistic develop-
ment, will find its fulfilment at Stratford-upon-
Avon.

Apart from the Theatre the development of
Stratford naturally would be upon the lines of
Professor Geddes' " Study in City Develop-
ment." For, not being a garden city, but a
borough with a great tradition and natural
beauty, nothing is needed save the carrying
out of the few suggestions which follow.

The Grammar School of King Edward VI.
can trace its actual origin to the Ancient Guild
of the Holy Cross, before 1269. This Guild

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THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

was threatened by Henry VIII. but escaped
suppression, being however reconstituted in
the next reign. This fact would be known to
Shakespeare before he conceived his " Henry
VIII.," and probably was not forgotten in
writing it,

The Parish Church, close to the river, marks
the resting-place of Shakespeare and maintains
its spiritual uses. Its cruciform shape, the old
sanctuary knocker, and memorials of names
well known in the spacious days of the last
great revival of national and artistic feeling,
bind us to the past.

Nor does the Theatre stand alone. With it
are the Picture Gallery and Library.

And near the Theatre stands the great statue
and monument by Lord Ronald Sutherland
Gower.

Thus we have the elements of civic life : the
School, Church, Library, Picture Gallery, and
Theatre.

So that in suggesting that Stratford should
be, more than it is, a Festival place and Folk-
Meet for the race, the claim is not made with-
out the existence of the elements essential to
such an idea. Many cities have these things,
but nowhere else has been so favoured by
fortune, nor is there any borough in England

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

that combines to this degree the essential
qualities of city and country.

How far Stratford can go on garden city
lines is a matter of detail for its burgesses.

But its artistic development depends upon
the ability of national scholars and artists to
render it as unsurpassable as Venice in her
splendour ; and upon the capacity of the people
for pleasure, and for labour.

One of Professor Geddes' most fruitful ideas
is that each town or city should so organise
the playful energy of boys as to get them to
construct a primitive village. If, with the
guidance of a practical and scholarly man,
they dig the cave of the troglodyte and build
the primitive hut, they will have made a
valuable study in sociology. For from the
early activities of mankind they can be led
in magic succession from point to point. Thus
will they be educated.

Gradually a village could be built, revealing
the origin and practice of handicrafts.

An Art Museum, and a Rock Garden for
the proper study of geology and botany, could
be evolved. Thus would Stratford become of
enormous educational interest to the people.

Professor Geddes goes so far as to suggest
the organisation of Jd. donkey rides, so that

186

THE PRACTICALITIES OF ART

the healthy pleasures of the seaside also could
be enjoyed. A sand-pit would extend this
idea. So there is no reason why the children
should not see " The Piper " and Shakespeare
under festival conditions.

In fact, there is no joy in life or useful
knowledge that could not well be grafted upon
the existing organisations of this God-given
town.

Support can be given by the simple means
of spending holidays there, or by endowment
of some special feature.

The Theatre is bound by its articles to
divide no profits, but to use them for develop-
ment. Like the School or Church it is not a
speculative enterprise.

And when one thinks of what Andrew
Carnegie has done for Dunfermline by putting
into practice Professor Geddes' ideas and his
own, it seems certain that in good time Strat-
ford will be able to show the world a system of
organised beauty that will purify the life of
the many cities that may follow the example.

For instance, a social club, furnished simply
to represent the art and economy of the home,
would set a standard for all who saw it, while
the living drama and calm beauty of the place
would stimulate the intellect and emotions, so

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

that souls dimmed by civilisation would find
themselves become not copyists but original
and individual men and women.

Viewed solely as a place of summer-holiday,
in which the delights of Shakespearean art
mingle with the pleasures of mediaeval memory
and the exhilaration of sunlight and fresh air,
Stratford-upon-Avon makes a strong appeal.

But how much more alluring is the Piper's
tune, the spell that lures grown-ups and children
along the bright ways of Art !

And those of us who love the name of
Shakespeare, and hear his full tone best in the
place of his birth, see more than this.

For where men meet in brotherhood there
begins a strong peace and a blood-pact. The
spirit of the Folk-Meet binds us and we are
one people, bound by a common Fatherhood
and a mutual joy.

And our dreams, whether of Life or the
living Art, become holy, and our aims gain a
common purpose, for England is the heart of
the Anglo-Celtic people, and Stratford Eng-
land's heart, beating with all the loyal love
which is ours to give and to gain.

1 88

FOLK ART

BY MARY NEAL

I

THE STRATFORD - UPON - AVON FESTIVAL
MOVEMENT AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS

No more suitable spot could have been chosen
for a theatre devoted to such ideals as those of
the Shakespearean Memorial than Stratford-
upon-Avon. Alike for the beauty of the little
old-world town and of its surrounding country,
and for its associations as the birthplace of
Shakespeare, it is beloved on both sides of the
Atlantic, and makes an ideal meeting-ground
for all the English-speaking people.

The Theatre is built in the midst of a beauti-
ful garden on the banks of the river Avon.
Time has already mellowed its walls and begun
to cover them with ivy and trailing greenery.
At Stratford, on a summer's day, with the
Theatre doors open on to the river, radiant in
sunshine, and with its pollard willows making
a delicate green shadow, and with one's ears
full of the rhythm of Shakespeare's verse, one
might well be back in the days when men saw

191

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

in all beauty, whether of colour or sound or
movement, some symbol of the gods they
worshipped. And there is no jar between the
play inside its walls and the surroundings in
which one can walk between the acts and after
the play is over, all is so different from the
crowded city street into which so many theatres
open in other places. Here all is peaceful and
idyllic, and helpful to the best understanding
of our national drama.

This means that in the very heart of England,
close not only to the countryside with its rural
traditions but to the manufacturing towns, not
less intrinsically part of the national life, is a
theatre, intended by its founders to keep alive
the love of all that is most characteristic of
English dramatic art.

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (to give
its official and registered title) is owned and
managed by an Association of Governors, the
chief part of the practical work being in the
hands of a committee of management. The
Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon is repre-
sented ex officio among the Governors by the
Mayor and six aldermen, and the remainder of
the body is composed of people of position in
the county or the borough, or of eminence in
literature, art, or the drama.

192

Photo by Ellis & Walery

MR. HENRY AINLEY AS ROMEO

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

In addition to the actual Theatre, the Shake-
speare Memorial comprises also a Library and
Picture Gallery, both of which contain much
that is of special interest to those who visit
Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as a tower, from
the top of which can be seen the country, the
villages, and the distant hills which Shake-
speare knew from boyhood to his last years.

The Library and the very comfortable
Reading-room are on the ground floor. The
Memorial Library contains some 10,000 books
and pamphlets, including several of the early
quartos and all the first four folios, 1623, 1632,
1664, an d 1685. Here, too, is Garrick's own
copy of Rowe's edition, 1 709 ; and here are
nearly all the collected editions ever published
in the English language, including some of
the now very scarce early American editions.
Here is also a unique collection of transla-
tions of Shakespeare into foreign tongues,
some thirty languages, including many Indian
dialects, Japanese and Chinese, being re-
presented. Truly a wonderful collection, a
wonderful tribute to the genius of the greatest
of Englishmen.

Other valuable books of Shakespeareana,
dramatic history, English drama, local topo-
graphy, heraldry, archaeology, and general

193 N

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

reference add to the interest of the collection,
and all these works may be studied by any
one who procures a reader's ticket from the
Librarian.

The Library has a small endowment, besides
a special fund raised by the present Librarian ;
but, of course, any bequests or donations of
money or of books required are welcome, and
such a gift is no bad way of linking the donor
with the town and memory of Shakespeare.
The Reading-room is open to visitors, and the
Memorial Librarian, Mr. W. Salt Brassington,
F.S.A., is always ready to give students and
inquirers the benefit of his learning and
advice. Without further description it may
be said that the Library is one in which the
Shakespearean student will find all that he can
desire.

The Picture Gallery contains some notable
paintings. First there is the famous portrait
of William Shakespeare, painted on a panel
in the Italian style and dating from the early
part of the seventeenth century ; it is quite
possible that this is the original of the Martin
Droeshout engraving which appears opposite
the title-page in the first folio of the plays
(1623). The portrait is painted on two planks
of old English elm, prepared with white plaster,

194

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

primed red, and bearing in the top left-hand
corner the inscription, " William Shakespeare,
1609." This picture has been pronounced, on
the unimpeachable authority of leading con-
noisseurs, to be a genuine early seventeenth
century painting. That it represents the same
man as the engraving in the first folio no
one can doubt. The only question on which
scholars disagree is this : Was the engraving
made from the picture, or was the picture
painted from the engraving ?

Other portraits of Shakespeare here collected
are a photograph of the Droeshout engraving,
the "Venice"' portrait, the " Jacob Tonson"
portrait, the " Willett " portrait, the D'Avenant
bust a copy of the original in the Garrick Club,
London, which was discovered in 1845 bricked
up in the wall of the old "Duke's Theatre"
in Lincoln's Inn Fields and the "Napier"
portrait ; while at the foot of the stairs stands
a copy of the statue of 1740 in Westminster
Abbey by Kent and Scheemakers. It need
hardly be said that none of these have the
authority of the Droeshout engraving and
portrait, or of the bust on the monument in
Holy Trinity Church.

In view of the excellence of the catalogue,
we must resist the temptation to linger over

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

the hundreds of drawings, paintings, engrav-
ings, miniatures, and relics of Shakespearean
scenes and characters, of famous actors and
actresses, of dead and bygone productions,
which the generosity of students, scholars,
players, and Shakespeareans of England,
Europe, and America has brought together
within these walls. The collection is increas-
ing in importance and size every year, and the
problem of space will soon become a serious
one.

A stone's-throw from the original group of
buildings of the Memorial there is also a
Lecture-room, which has a small stage for the
purposes of lectures, recitals, or concerts. This
hall is used as a club-room for visitors during
the annual Festivals, and as a gallery for the
exhibition of pictures on loan.

Of the actual record of Shakespearean and
other performances given in the course of the
thirty-four years' existence of the Memorial
Theatre, some account has already been given
in the opening chapter of this volume, but the
present brief consideration of the varied in-
terests grouped around the several departments
of the Memorial building brings us back appro-
priately to the subject of the annual Shake-
speare Festival. Every year, for three weeks,

196

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

beginning as near as possible to April 23
(St. George's Day, and the traditional day
of Shakespeare's birth), Stratford-upon-Avon
holds a festival of Shakespeare which is
attended by numbers of visitors from all parts
of England, and not a few from other parts of
the Empire, from the United States and the
countries of Europe. If the reader were to
find himself in Bridge Street on the morning
of the opening day of a Festival, he would see
it a brilliant avenue of flags, banners, shields,
and decorations, some made in Stratford and
given from afar. At the head of the street
stands the flagstaff bearing the huge Union
Jack presented by the King. Near it is
the flag of Wales, presented by the Prince
of Wales, and the long line of flagstaffs
down the wide street bears the standards also
of Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies, and all the
King's dominions beyond the seas, and of all
the nations of the world, all presented by their
official representatives in England. The shields
of all nations are here too, for Shakespeare is
the world's property and all peoples combine
to do him honour. At one minute to the
hour appointed all these flags are still furled ;
but round them are grouped the ambassadors
or other representatives of various countries

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

who have come to take part in the Festival ;
and as the clock strikes each pulls the cord
which looses his country's flag to the breeze.
Simultaneously the band strikes up, and the
crowd of spectators, the boys from the Grammar
School, and the children of the town join in the
National Anthem.

On April 23, which is celebrated as the
poet's birthday, a procession passes along the
gaily decorated streets, each of which bears
its particular message expressed in its colours
and designs, down to the Parish Church of
the Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare was
baptized and where he lies buried. Flowers
are here in profusion, for when the brief
service, with its address and its music, is over,
every visitor present will place a wreath or
a bouquet, be it only a school-child's bunch of
flowers, on the tomb of Shakespeare. On the
way back from the Church the visitor will pro-
bably fall in with the famous troop of morris-
dancers from a neighbouring village, with their
quaint costumes hung with bells and their gaily
beribboned knees and hats, dancing with un-
flagging energy a dance in which Shakespeare
himself may often have joined, a dance that,
in its origin and symbolism, goes back to
time immemorial. In the afternoon there is a

198

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

reception at the Town Hall by the Shakespeare
Club, at which the Mayor acts as host ; and
the town is en fete all day until night comes
and it is time to go to the Theatre.

In recent years there has been established
an annual exhibition of works of art, house-
hold utensils and furniture, tapestry, and curios
illustrating mediaeval and Elizabethan times,
or of some special play of the period. These
exhibitions, it is hoped, will eventually become
a Folk Museum in which will be traced the
agricultural, industrial, and artistic life of Eng-
land from earliest times until the present day.

Old English sports hold a place during the
Festival, and include wrestling, quarter-staff,
single-stick, fencing, skipping, and old English
dancing.

On May Day a special Festival for the
children of Stratford - upon - Avon and the
surrounding district has been arranged by
Mrs. F. R. Benson, and there are those who
think this one of the most charming attrac-
tions of the whole Festival. Mrs. Benson
loves the children, and understands that they
must dance and sing out of the joy of their
hearts if it is to be a real May Festival and
not a mere spectacle for grown-up folks or an
extra lesson for the children. The coming of

199

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

May Day is a sign for a well-known dancer to
appear and fiddle for the children of Stratford
and of Ilmington, the latter following him as
the children followed the Pied Piper of
Hamelin. He regards himself as " Mrs.
Benson's friend," and nothing would keep
him from helping her in the May Day revel.
Down the street the children dance, and into
the Theatre gardens, where the Festival takes
place.

It is not necessary to enlarge on the value
of the work done during all these years in
connection with the Theatre at Stratford-upon-
Avon by Mr. F. R. Benson. The townsfolk of
Stratford showed their appreciation of it in
1910 when he was presented with the free-
dom of the city as a token of their loyalty
to him and to his ideals. This is a distinc-
tion which has not been accorded to any one
since the day when Garrick received the same
honour.

It is three hundred years since there was
incarnated in the personality of Shakespeare
all England's best ideals of national life, and,
since these were manifested in his dramas,
we, to-day, are beginning to understand what
these dramas mean, and to perceive to what
high purpose his art can be made to serve

200

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

both as a means of education and of recreation,
and as an instrument for keeping alive in towns
and villages the traditions and memories of
heroes and of heroic deeds.

We believe that the work of the Memorial
Theatre will be much enlarged as its purpose
is better understood and more widely known.

From it will come the representation of
classic and modern drama that will set the note
of England's best achievement ; and attached
to it will be a School of Acting, to belong
to which will be a guarantee of excellence of
technique and of the possession of true artistic
gifts.

Thus the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre will stand in the future as
it has done in the past for an intelligent and
perceptive patriotism, having a due apprecia-
tion of all that is best in the past history of our
race and of all that is most worth encouraging
in the future, which is still ours to mould as
we will.

In May 1909 a meeting was held in the
Memorial Picture Gallery at Stratford-upon-
Avon to consider the possibility of making the
work of the Theatre and of the Festival better
known.

Plans were also made for a second Festival,
201

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

which has since been successfully inaugurated,
in July and August, for the convenience of
those who for various reasons could not attend
in April and May, and also for visitors from
the Colonies, the United States, and other
countries.

It was also felt that the time had come when
an attempt should be made to gather round
the Theatre those who in various ways were
working in the interests of art and who per-
ceived in dancing, music, song, and games
those regenerative forces which were helping
to restore to the English people their inherit-
ance of joy and of strength, so long held in
abeyance through the invading evils of over-
crowded city life.

The late Mr. Edward Burrows, one of
H.M. Inspectors of Schools, was present. He
had long been a warm supporter of all that would
lead to a fuller and happier life for the children
in our schools, and had been one of the first
to welcome the revival of folk-song and dance,
and to realise its value as an educative and
recreative force.

Mr. F. R. Benson reminded those present
that the original founders of the Memorial
Theatre had evidently foreseen that the work
would extend in many directions, and had

202

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

made provision for this extension in the
Articles of Association.

It will be well to insert here the article to
which Mr. Benson referred. The objects of
the Association include :

(a) The building of a theatre at Stratford-
upon-Avon to be dedicated to the memory of
Shakespeare.

(H) The annual celebration in a fitting
manner of Shakespeare's birthday.

(c] The advancement and improvement of
the dramatic art, by the establishment and
maintenance of a School of Acting, the delivery
of lectures, the establishment of prizes for
essays, and other means.

(d} The effecting the objects aforesaid or
any of them, either alone or conjointly with
any scientific, literary, or other society or
institution.

A long and earnest discussion followed, and
the main idea of the Conference was eventually
formulated in the following words : It is pro-
posed to hold a supplementary season in the
summer, about the end of July and the begin-
ning of August, for the benefit of the Colonial,
American, and foreign visitors. At this season
it is also proposed to give in the Theatre and
out of doors special plays and performances of

203

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

a pageant nature for the benefit of associations,
schools, universities, and to arrange camps for
students, boy scouts, and children.

Thus began what promises to be a new
epoch in the history of the Memorial Theatre
and its surrounding agencies.

The time for this new development, which
will carry the spirit of Shakespeare and all
that is involved in his dramas into ever wider
and wider spheres, was well chosen. To those
who have eyes to see and ears to hear it is
abundantly evident that there is to-day an
awakening throughout the length and breadth
of England. It is an awakening of national
consciousness and of national responsibility. It
involves a race-consciousness that will over-
come class prejudice, and that will unite the
dwellers in all parts of the Empire in that it
means a new Imperial ideal. All over the
world and in all nations the cosmopolitan ideal
is being realised as false except for purposes
of trade, commerce, and for certain material
conveniences. In art, in high politics, in its
true and inner life each nation must carve its
own destiny according to its own distinctive
individuality and the special gifts with which
it has been entrusted.

The renaissance of this individual race-
204

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

consciousness is to-day in England finding an
outward and visible sign in a revival of folk-
art in drama, dance music, and song, and in
a love of nature and outdoor life. In legend
and folk-tale we are relearning the age-long
wisdom of the folk which has always had its
roots deep in the traditions of the English
people. We are beginning to distrust the
generalisations gathered on the surface of the
hurrying life of to-day, and we are looking
deeper into the heart of England for some of
those qualities without which no nation can
fulfil its highest destiny.

And it is in this development of our own
highest ideals that we shall learn to understand
the peoples of other countries whose outward
characteristics may differ widely from our own,
and it is on these lines that the lasting comity
of nations will eventually come about, and not
by racial wars nor by a surface glozing over
of national differences.

The evidences of this awakening are all
around us in England to-day. In cities and
in towns young men and women are spending
the hours of recreation in singing the folk-
songs and dancing the folk-dances evolved
from the tillers of the soil, as an expression of
race-consciousness in religious ceremonial no

205

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

less than of joy in everyday work and life.
They are also acting and reciting the master-
pieces of English literature with tone and
gesture which would have been an impossible
achievement ten or twenty years ago. Children,
too, are being taught in folk-games some of the
deepest lessons yet learned by the human race.
That this last statement may not seem far
fetched an instance may here be given.

A very favourite game is called " London
Bridge/' It tells of the breaking down of a
great and important bridge. It tells in
nonsense rhyme of different suggestions for
building it again :

"Build it up with pins. and needles;
Build it up with penny loaves ;
Build it up with gold and silver,"

until at last with apparent irrelevance come
the words :

" Here's a prisoner we have got,
My fair lady."

There is an evidently made up charge against
the prisoner of having stolen a watch and chain,
an offer of ransom, and a final leading of the
victim to prison, on failure to find the required
ransom.

206

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

It is well authenticated that in ancient days
human sacrifices were laid at the foundation-
stones of important buildings, and that in later
and more humane days treasure in gold and
silver was substituted for the human life.

And so in this child's game we see handed
down in symbol the age-long truth that no great
work can last unless founded upon the sacrifice
of self, that no bridge can be built across which
humanity shall walk to higher life unless under-
neath and at its foundation is human life and
human service.

And the English country-side is also alive
to-day with this rebirth of our national in-
heritance of folk-art. In remote villages
miracle plays, pageants of history, folk-songs,
and folk-dances are studied during long winter
evenings to make merry the days when the
sun shines and life can be lived out of doors.

In schools, eyes and hands are being trained
to a new dexterity, and bare school walls are
gay with the colours of the beautiful brushwork
done by tiny children in infant schools. At
Sompting, in Sussex, history and geography
have been made living and interesting to the
children by dramatising those subjects when-
ever possible. And not only has this awaken-
ing come to the children, but in many villages

207

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

to-day ploughmen and sewing-maids, work-
men and workwomen, are taking part in drama
and dance and song.

There are everywhere signs that the ugliness
of cities has reached its limit, that the power
conferred by mere money has failed, that com-
mercialism cannot satisfy, and once more men
and women are returning to the deeper and
more abiding rhythm of life long ago broken
by the rush and whirr of machinery. We are
relearning the lesson to-day that the forces
which make for evil are apt to be increased
both by opposition and by cowardly acquies-
cence, and that they can be redeemed only by
the transmuting power of beauty and of art
into willing servants of the best and highest
interests of the nation.

To concentrate these newly - inaugurated
forces and to give them an ever widening
opportunity for expression is the task which
the Festival Association has set itself to do.

As a part of the summer season of 1 910 at
the Memorial Theatre, a Folk Festival was
held in which dancers and singers from a
factory in Hull, children from London, country
folk from the immediate neighbourhood, and
country school children took part. The Theatre
was filled all day with people from all over

208

Photo by IV. y. Kilpatrick, Dublin

THE LATE GEORGE R. WEIR AS SIR TOBY BELCH

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

England, and interested spectators from coun-
tries as far off as America and New Zealand.

The actual Folk Festival was preceded by
a competition in folk dance and song, and
the competitors were traditional dancers and
singers from the country around Stratford,
and children, young men, and young women
who had learnt the songs and dances since
they were revived in 1905.

During the three weeks of the Festival daily
classes were held for folk-song singing, morris
and country dancing, and children's singing-
games, especially for teachers engaged in ele-
mentary schools and physical training colleges.
These classes were well attended, and the
Parish Parlour where they were held became
quite a meeting ground for those especially
interested in the study of folk-art and its use
as a factor in the education of children.

Many distinguished visitors, including His
Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda, came to the
Parish Parlour to see the classes. On each
Saturday morning, before the departure of the
week's pupils to their homes all over England,
a little informal talk was given by Mrs. F. R.
Benson, the Rev. F. Hodgson, Mr. Benson,
Mr. Flower and others, and one Saturday was
memorable because the Gaekwar spoke to us

209 o

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

of the life of his people in India and the link
between East and West which was being
strengthened by the love of folk-art and of all
that the highest drama meant to the people.

Those Saturday morning talks will live for
all of us who were present as embodying the
ideals for which it is hoped these visits to
Stratford-upon-Avon will stand.

Excursions were arranged to places of in-
terest in the neighbourhood, and many happy
hours were spent boating on the river. There
was during the whole Festival a delightful
spirit of companionship and of helpfulness
which promises well for the work we have
so much at heart.

The performance of Josephine Preston
Peabody's play, " The Piper/' in the first
summer season, at which were gathered so
many interested in the education of the young,
set that note of beauty and of joy for the
children which it is hoped will always be
associated with Stratford-upon-Avon.

" Out of your cage,
Come out of your cage
And take your soul on a pilgrimage !
Pease in your shoes, an if you must !
But out and away, before you're dust :
Scribe and Stay-at-home,
210

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

Saint and Sage,
Out of your cage,
Out of your cage ! "

was the message which went out in 1910 at the
beginning of the new venture, and it is the
message which well expresses the spirit of the
whole movement.

There is already established an office in
Guild Street which is a central bureau of
information about pageants, folk-drama, miracle
plays, folk-dancing, folk-songs, and children's
singing games. This office is prepared to
supply information on these subjects, and, when
required, to assist local initiative. The work
of the office is also to keep records of all
dramatic societies and their performances, and
to collect information as to plays, acting ver-
sions, scenery, and dresses.

One of the objects of the movement is to
facilitate and encourage dramatic representa-
tions throughout the country, especially in
villages by the villagers themselves, and in
schools by scholars, for purposes of education
and recreation.

Greek, Latin, French, and German plays
have already been produced with success at
the public schools and the universities ; his-
torical episodes, masques, and pageants in

211

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

elementary schools and villages. The opinion
of many of the teachers who have tried the
experiment confirms the idea that a class of
students will learn more of a subject in three
hours by assisting at a play, whether as actor
or audience, than in three weeks by any other
method. Further, that in the school play there
are not only the machinery of teaching by word
and pictures any special subject, but also the
means of increasing esprit de corps, and awak-
ening an intellectual interest in the dullest of
scholars. A very poor woman was lately heard
to say that the folk dances and games had
" knocked more into her child's head than all
the other schooling she had ever had ! "
There are whole scenes in history, in travels,
in Herodotus, Chaucer, Froissart, Addison,
Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, and
others ready to hand ; there are legends and
myths, English and foreign, waiting on the
book-shelves. There are also many plays that,
from the form in which they are cast or from
some peculiar requirements, are more suitable
for this method of representation ; many such
works, capable of giving noble pleasure and
stirring the imagination of actors and audience,
might find in the hall and in the schoolroom a
hearing denied them in the theatre.

212

THE FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

The future of this whole movement lies with
the English people themselves.

We have the use of an endowed Theatre,
the assistance of a stock company of accom-
plished artists, and a School of Acting ; and
now we have our extended Festival, for the
development of which there is also the nucleus
of an endowment. As the membership of the
Association grows, and as the endowment fund
also grows, all that we wish to do can be
accomplished.

It is to the Association which has already
accomplished so much, and which has before
it so hopeful a future, that we invite all those
men and women of good-will who would see
England a fairer and more joyful country for
the coming generation.

The foundations were well laid by the
founders of the work ; it is for us to build
the Temple of Life and of Art, and to give
to it our loyal service and our best gifts.

213

II

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART
I. IN ENGLAND

THE revival of folk-art in song and dance,
in game and drama is, in England to-day, an
accomplished fact. The future development
of this revival is still on the knees of the gods,
but there are those who see in it unlimited
possibilities of happiness and well-being for the
coming generations of England.

There is also to-day a new and different
interest in folk-lore, in legend, and in folk-tale,
and a new comprehension of what both science
and religion may learn from their study.

Sociologists finding the problems of civilisa-
tion too difficult to unravel in the complicated
life of towns and cities, are studying the pre-
historic life of individual and of communal
man, hoping that by following the threads of
progress from these olden days onward they
may discover at what points divergence was
made on to a mistaken road, that they may
guide the future on to better lines.

214

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

Students of Eugenics are taking facts and
premises from the simplest forms of life and
processes on which to found helpful suggestions
for the improvement of a race which has to
adapt itself to an ever increasing complexity of
environment.

Artists, too, are going back to the creations
of the simple and unlettered folk that they may
build on the foundations of natural taste and
emotion. We are seeking in all things to
penetrate deep into the heart of the folk, and
so we are finding evidences of religion and of
the spiritual life not in the wordy disputations
of theologians, but in the appeal which the
spirit makes to the deepest instincts of the
race, as shown in the similarity of the beliefs
of simple folk in all countries and in all times,
as illustrated when the paganism of Greece was
merged into the Christian religion.

It is interesting to look back some twenty
years and trace the origin of this renaissance
of folk-art which is so completely changing
the life of England both in town and country.

We are passing on from the negation and
denial of Puritan days to a Catholic acceptance
of joy and of beauty as our national inheritance.

If we have learnt the lesson, which is
necessary for a nation no less than for an

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THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

individual, that the time of death and of
negation is part of the growth in life and fruit-
fulness, that the corn of wheat must fall into
the earth and die before it can rise to golden
harvest, then our Puritan ancestors will not
have built in vain, and we can be trusted to
reap the harvest of joy which, in tears, they
sowed.

And the revival, which has its roots in the
folk, is a revival of art which is not separated
from life and work, therefore it is clean and
virile, and is not beset with the dangers of an
attenuated preciosity so often the result of an
artistic renaissance. One Eastertide a working
man from London, who spent long days in
hard and difficult mechanical work, spent a week
in the country. It was a late Easter, and the
garden was a mass of spring flowers. For
hours he sat taking his fill of their beauty,
wanting no other amusement than just to sit
and watch. And because his working days
were hard and his labour honest, so his love of
the beauty of earth and sky and flowers was
clean and strong, and as far as possible removed
from that of the pseudo-aesthete who prates of
art and the artistic temperament.

Probably the first seeds of this revival
amongst the people were sown in the early

216

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

city settlements, which were first established
about twenty years ago, as a protest against
conditions which gave to one class all the
opportunities of enjoying the beautiful things
of life. A dawning consciousness that it was
true of all classes that man could not live by
bread alone sent a band of men and women
into the poorest districts of London to share as
far as it was possible the advantages which
leisure and education had given them with
those who had been deprived of their birth-
right of joy and beauty.

The educated classes had thrown off the
iron yoke of Puritanism, but it was much later
before the working-class was allowed a share
in this new liberty.

The woman who encouraged her daughter to
dance and sing and take an intelligent interest
in drama, still considered these things wicked
for her maid and her dressmaker.

But in these settlements men and women of
all classes came together, and as time went on
the demand of the workers for a fuller life was
met by those who were ready to meet that
demand, and music and dances and painting
and drama were brought within reach of those
who were just beginning to realise how much
they meant.

217

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

And as ever happens, those who went to
give found that they were great receivers too ;
what they gave of their leisure and their in-
tellectual equipment came back to them in
strength and loyalty and an insight into the
deeper truths of life, unknown to those who
study only books. The folk-art revival is a
result of this meeting in human fellowship of all
classes and of all conditions.

The revival of folk-dancing, which has been
such an important landmark in the history
of the folk-art revival, was taken up with
enthusiasm by a club for working girls which
had for its object just this sharing of the best
things of life with those to whom the enjoyment
of them would have been otherwise impossible.
And it happened on this wise. For many years
our winter's companionship had ended in a
summer's holiday spent in the country and by
the sea, and there we had learned to know and
love the sights and sounds of the country.
We became familiar with racing clouds, with
the deep tidal river, and with the ever chang-
ing rhythm of the sea. It was not strange,
therefore, that a little working girl said when
she first heard the broken rhythm of the
beautiful folk-song, "The Bold Fisherman":
" Isn't it just like the sound of the little waves

218

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

curling over s ?" It is interesting to note that
the same idea came to a cultivated musician
who heard the song for the first time.

Florence Warren, whose name stands to
many both in England and America as that
of the finest exponent of English folk-dancing,
first learnt to know and love the sea as she
sped over the waves on a moonlight trip in
a big fishing trawler, that held all the party
of girls spending a holiday away from the
city ; and I like to think that, as a child of
eleven, she began to drink in from Mother
Earth some of the gaiety which has made her
such a bringer of joy to both English and
American children and their teachers.

Besides, from our country holiday we had
learned much from song and dance and drama
during the winter evenings we spent in town,
and we had learnt the national Scotch dances
and danced them on special occasions to the
sound of the bagpipe, played by the gallant-
stepping piper who had also taught the steps
of the dances. And we had given our winter
to Irish folk-song and Irish dances.

Circumstances had for a long time been
fitting the members of this club for the joyous
service to their country which has set the
children of England dancing once more as

219

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

they danced in the days when England was
merry England in reality as well as in name.

In the autumn of 1909 the first English
folk-song was taught to the members of the
Esperance Girls' Club, and its name, " The
Seeds of Love," was symbolic of the harvest
of song which stands high and golden in the
land to-day.

The effect of the music was magical, and
although to-day they know some hundred
songs, the music still holds its charm, both
for the singers and for those who come again
and again to hear the songs, until one is
ashamed of the days when we gave them the
artificial and insincere music which was all we
thought them capable of appreciating. Then
some weeks afterwards we heard that there
were still alive in at least one country place
the old morris dances, and lute men were in-
vited to London to teach these dances of the
country-side.

And, again, the name of the first dance learnt
was symbolic, and again the result was magical.
In less than half-an-hour the old ceremonial
dance of the spring, " Bean-setting/' was being
danced in a part of London where twice a week
laden hay-carts bring the odours of the country
right into the heart of London.

220

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

It is said that there is no third generation of
Londoners, and one wonders sometimes, as one
looks at the way in which this revival of dance
and song has spread, whether there was not some
response of ancestral memory in that first learn-
ing of songs and dances by these London girls.

Experience has confirmed the first impres-
sions that these hard-working, independent,
healthy, and laughter-loving daughters of the
people are the natural interpreters and teachers
of these folk-dances which have come from the
unlettered and simple country folk.

In England there is danger that we do not
recognise that which the Americans have been
careful to make quite clear, that whereas the
classic and the ballroom dance need careful
training and technical skill, the folk-dance is a
natural expression of joy and well-being, and
needs no special training either in dancer or
teacher. I like to hear it said, " We will show
you a folk-dance," and not " We will teach you
one," because this is really what the teaching
should be.

Folk-art, if it is genuine, is an organic thing,
and must grow and develop as the years pass
by, and the dance of to-day will change to-
morrow if it still expresses the genuine emotion
of to-morrow.

221

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

The revival of the love of drama and the
actual taking part in it of those who at best
were only lookers-on, is another hopeful sign
of to-day.

The miracle play, the Church's way of teach-
ing moral and religious truths to simple and
unlettered folk, had fallen on evil days, and
almost the only form in which it remained for
years was the Punch and Judy show, always
and for ever dear to children everywhere. How
many of us remember, as we look on at the antics
of the puppets, that the show once represented
the drama of the betrayal of our Lord by Judas
Iscariot and Pontius Pilate ? And now in many
towns and villages truth and beauty are being
held up for worship, and treachery and lying
shown in all their ugliness by plays written for
and acted by the people themselves.

Ten years ago it would have been difficult to
find a village where a play could be seen, still
less one in which the villagers took part. Not
many years hence every village will have its
play, with its own stock company composed of
those who follow the plough, shoe the horses,
make the butter, and follow all the ordinary
occupations.

In Boxford in Berkshire there has been
given for eight consecutive years a masque in

222

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

which the children of the village take their
part. One year the play represented the
personification of the rivers and streams of
the county. The play was given in a wood-
land theatre, and the children, as gnats and
dragon-flies, darted in and out, or as trees
and tiny streams played their parts as only
children can.

As the years have passed this play has be-
come the centre of the village life, from which
radiate many forces which make for a better
and a happier social life.

In another village in Somerset there is given
on SS. Innocents' Day a play which tells the
story of Bethlehem and the tidings of great
joy brought by the angels to the shepherds as
they watched. The parts are taken by the
shepherds and tillers of the soil who live in
the village^ and it is under the direction of the
parish priest, who leaves the dialogue mostly
to the people who act the play, only reserving
to himself the rights of censor should the
dialogue become too local and too personal
for the peace of mind of the audience!

These are only two plays out of very many,
and inquiry can be made at the office of the
Festival Association at Stratford-upon-Avon
for a list of plays at present being performed.

223

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

What has been the effect of this revival of
folk-art in the present generation ? This is a
question one is often asked by those who are
still a little afraid of happiness and who do not
quite believe that

" The good are always the merry
Save by an evil chance."

It has meant, and will, I think, always mean,
a greater patriotism and love of one's country
and a closer knitting together of class and
class.

It means the recovery of a lost happiness
and beauty and a strengthening of moral fibre,
and it means more physical well-being.

It means gentler manners and a greater
courtesy, and a joy of living that will make
English boys and girls what every lover of
our country would have them, upstanding,
clean living, and joyous.

II. THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART AND THE DRAMA
IN THE UNITED STATES

The revival of folk-dance, folk-song, and
folk-games is already one of the features of
education in America.

Especially delightful is the fact that the
224

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

Societies which exist for organising the play-
time of the city children are using folk-dances
and games, recognising that these are the
natural outlet for the joy of life, always the
inheritance of children, however sordid and
miserable their material circumstances may be.

The interesting feature of the revival in
America is that, as there are living there the
folk of every nation under the sun, the teachers
do not teach the English dramas and games,
but have made a study of those of the many
nations represented by the children in their
schools.

The experiment in America is therefore
unique, and will be watched by all those
interested in the subject of folk-art. Perhaps
in the future a new school of music and dance
will arise, founded on this accumulated know-
ledge of the folk-music of all nations.

I have been attending every kind of play
during the past three months' stay in the
United States. I have gone from Maeter-
linck at the New Theatre, to Miver's Music
Hall in the Bowery, and have a very definite
idea of the strength and of the weakness of the
presentations I have seen. In the first place,
I have never seen anything so beautiful as the

225 p

THE SHAKESPEARE REVIVAL

setting, lighting, stage effects, and dressing of
every play I have seen, and of all the beautiful
effects the scenes in "Sister Beatrice" at the
New Theatre were beyond all words most
beautiful. No criticism is possible, for there
was not only richness and superb colouring,
but also a wonderful restraint throughout.

I saw another symbolic play besides " Sister
Beatrice," and that was "The Scarecrow," by
Percy Mackaye, and the acting in these two
plays was beyond criticism, for the real things
which they symbolised belong to no age and
to fio nation. The struggle between earthly
love and the spiritual life, and the final realisa-
tion that when the love is high and true there
is no antagonism, belongs to all men ; the birth
of an evil through love, even when the soul
dwells in a pitifully grotesque exterior, is not
a new story, and can be interpreted as well
by an American as by a Frenchman or an
Englishman. But it is when it comes to the
interpretation of modern English drama, or
of a drama which is English as Shakespeare
is English, that the first difficulty comes in.

I do not think it possible for Shakespeare to
be played convincingly by any man or woman
who has not lived and studied in England, and
under some one who is saturated with all the

226

THE REVIVAL OF FOLK-ART

best traditions of the English stage. I have
come back more than ever convinced that the
Stock Company and School of Acting which we
already have, which it is hoped will be much
enlarged and strengthened in the near future,
is as much a necessity for the serious dramatic
artists of America as it is for those of England.
Some amalgamation could surely be arranged
by which American dramatic students could
study in England and be attached to the
School of Acting at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The New Theatre in New York is a standing
proof of the lavish generosity of Americans, and
of their patriotic desire that their country shall
have the best its sons and daughters can give
her. A step further and the establishment
of a co-operation with England in the training
of its artists, and America would have the finest
dramatic productions of the world.

227

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

HOW TO TAKE PART IN THE MOVEMENT
AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

HAVING read the foregoing chapters the reader will have
some idea of what is taking place and about to take place
in Stratford-upon-Avon. And the question may be asked,
"How may I take part in so valuable a movement?

1. By writing to the Secretary of the Festival Association
and making further inquiry as to how to get into touch
with the various developments.

2. By coming either alone or with a party of friends, to
either the Birthday Festival in the Spring or the Shake-
speare Season in the Summer. No better idea can be formed
of the work than by living in the atmosphere of Stratford-
upon-Avon for a few days and taking part in the revels.

3. If actual work is impossible one can become a sub-
scriber. Subscribers of a minimum of 55. annually become
Associates; donors of a minimum of ^5 become Life
Associates of the Festival Association. Donors of a
minimum of 100 are eligible for election as Governors
of the Memorial Theatre,

Or, one may help

(i.) By encouraging Morris Dancing among the villages
and cities. By forming classes for teachers. By sending

231

APPENDIX

teams to the annual Folk Festival held in July at Stratford-
upon-Avon.

(ii.) By encouraging in the same way Folk Singing in the
villages and towns.

(iii.) By writing small dramatic scenes or plays and
getting them performed in local centres, and perhaps bring-
ing performers to the Folk Festival to act such village
plays ; to make centres so that the neighbouring villages
can obtain information about performing a play, making or
hiring costumes and scenery, with the thousand and one
details of a small production, such centres always to be in
touch with the general centre at the Festival Association in
Stratford-upon-Avon.

(iv.) When more important dramatic work is undertaken
to arrange with the Central Office at Stratford-upon-Avon
for books of the plays and for the hire of costumes and
scenery at a reasonable cost. (Many helpers are needed
to prepare prompt-books and undertake to copy from
manuscript, to colour photographs, to write out descrip-
tions of costumes, &c.)

Inquiries concerning Theatre Tickets, Apartments,
Lodgings, &c., to be addressed to Miss A. Rainbow, Box
Office, Memorial Lecture Room, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Telephone 45.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS.

All Teachers and bond fide Students are granted special
privileges for the Summer Season. Full particulars can be
obtained from the Secretary, Festival Association, Stratford-
upon-Avon.

232

THE shortest and quickest route to the Home of Shake-
speare from London and a number of Provincial Towns in
the Midlands and the North of England is by the Great
Central Railway. The traveller from London is able to
journey from Marylebone by express trains in just over
two hours to Stratford-on-Avon. During the season these
run four days a week, viz. on Mondays, Wednesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, and return to town by an
equally quick train, for the modest fare of 6/6 for the
day, and 4/6 half-day. The inclusive fare of 12/6 pro-
vides rail journey from London (Marylebone) to Stratford-
on-Avon and back, conveyance from Station to Hotel,
luncheon at " Golden Lion " Hotel, circular drive to places
of interest in Stratford-on-Avon and Shottery, afternoon
tea at Hotel. The circular rail and motor tour fare of
1 1/6 includes rail journey from London (Marylebone) to
Stratford-on-Avon and back, and a tour by motor to
Anne Hathaway's cottage, Shottery, Warwick Castle,
Guy's ClirTe, Kenilworth Castle, Leamington, and back to
Shakespeare's Birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon. Particulars
of these facilities are obtainable at Marylebone Station,
any G.C.R. Town Office or Agency, or by post from
the Company's Publicity Bureau, 216 Marylebone Road,
London, N.W.

For Skitch-ma4 ste over.

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THE quickest and shortest route between London
and Stratford-on-Avon for Shakespeare's country
is by " The Shakespeare Route " on the Stratford-
upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway.

This newly-organised and important Railway
links up three Great Trunk Lines of England
(Great Central, Midland, and London & North-
Western Railway), and is thus enabled to give
the best and most expeditious service from

ALL PARTS TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

For full particulars of Train Service and all
information apply to RUSSELL WILLMOTT,
Manager, Stratford-on-Avon.

237

For Sketch-map see over.

"SHAKE

STRATFORD-U PON-AVON A

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MIDLAND JUNCTION RAILWAY

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Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co.
Edinburgh &* London

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